


Forbidden Lives (Day 3: Single Parent)

by AsYouCommand (OminousHummingObelisk)



Series: AUgust All Year Long [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Adoption, Alien Biology, Alien anatomy, Alternate Universe - Single Parent, Child Injury, Childhood Trauma, Cybertronian Bean Babies, Dubious Consent, Eventual Goodfeels, Kidfic, M/M, Masturbation, Mechpreg, Other, Transformers Bean Babies, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unwanted Pregnancy, WAFF, accidental child endangerment, mention of past rape, sexual fantasies, thoughts of abortion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OminousHummingObelisk/pseuds/AsYouCommand
Summary: It had only been a little drain on his energy.In which children are born following a rare and mysterious occurrence and go on to live their lives.
Relationships: Damus|Tarn/Pharma
Series: AUgust All Year Long [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1763485
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	1. The Original Blurb

**Author's Note:**

> This AUgust story is an expansion on the following blurb that I wrote a long time ago in response to [roddibean's dream on Tumblr](https://ark-of-eden.tumblr.com/post/178881326370/roddibean-a-while-back-i-had-a-dream-where-first). Check the link for fanart that somebody else did for the same AU.
> 
> I am really not a fan of pregnancy and/or kidfic, but I make an exception for Transformers bean babies, which are objectively the most perfect things ever. I probably would not have been brave enough to adapt this idea into a larger fic if not for astolat’s ["The Parent Trap."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17869196)

Pharma gets a This End Up box delivered to his office by ordinary mail. Inside is a fluffy nest of purple mesh in which a large, very well-cared-for bean is snoozing. The note tucked into the fluff is unsigned, but is conspicuously in Tarn’s handwriting: _I believe this is yours._

Pharma’s fuel runs cold. Absolutely no Autobot can find out about this. Probably Tarn shipped the bean to its other parent because he didn’t want the Decepticons to find out either. The only thing to do is just declare the bean a random orphan, but…Pharma can’t care for it. Better to stay as far from it as possible so nobody suspects anything. So who would be willing to deal with someone else’s infant? 

”Isn’t that so sad?” Pharma laments to First Aid twenty minutes later. “What monster would leave such a precious little blessing on a doorstep in such weather, I ask you?” 

”It’s the saddest thing ever!!” First Aid sobs, sparks falling from his visor as he cuddles the abandoned bean, which is wrapped in a ragged, definitely not purple blanket. “What a beautiful, perfect little spark he is! How could anyone not love you? Don’t worry, sweetie, you don’t need your parents. I’ll love you! I’ll take such good care of you and you’ll grow up so happy and strong!” Overcome by emotion, he rocks the confused bean gently and tries to wipe his visor. 

Pharma pats the nurse’s shoulder encouragingly. “You’re a good mech, Aid. I’m sure he’ll be much better off with you than with the sparkless, depraved, mis-built glitch who carried him.” Whew. Problem solved. 

Weirdly, word of the orphan somehow reached the mining complex and a slow trickle of other abandoned beans starts flowing into the clinic, from newborns to older ones who can toddle about and get into absolutely everything. Beanproofing the clinic takes ages and a surprising amount of construction resources. Tarn, of course, is clearly the kind of aftcleft who would never think of sending child support money. 

First Aid loves every single one of his adopted children and must have some kind of childcare outlier ability to be able to handle them all as easily as he does. 

Pharma happens across First Aid playing with his first adoptee one day, and braces himself because it would be too conspicuous if he turned and fled. “You’re getting so big!” First Aid coos to the cheerful bean. “What do you think, will you be a triplechanger when you grow up? I can’t tell if you’re trying to turn into a tank or a jet, you little wonder.” 

Pharma dies a little inside. Of course his offspring would be stubborn enough to base his form on his parents instead of just picking one up from the people around him. There was still time, maybe. He could still end up being an ambulance or a tracked drill or…or a leg. Anything not a tank or jet or both. Unfortunately, First Aid catches sight of him when the surgeon attempts to sneak by. “Oh, hello, sir! Look at this little gentlemech you found. He’s so well-behaved.” 

”Oh. Ah. Is he.” Pharma forces a smile. “That’s…wonderful.” 

”And he’s so smart, too! I actually think that he’s already learned to read, but his communication and motor systems aren’t developed enough for him to talk or write yet. He figured out how datapads work and likes them more than toys. Don’t you, sweetness?” 

”BeeeEEEEeeEeEEEeeep,” the bean warbles in surprisingly musical binary. 

First Aid giggles. “Do you have a lovely singing voice? Oh yes, you do!” 

Pharma is waiting for his spark to start spinning again. _No. No. Please, Primus, don’t let him have his carrier’s voice._


	2. The AUgust Story Itself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, as promised, is the actual story written for AUgust Day 3. Significant details have changed from the blurb because, fundamentally, I don't think that the idea of unwanted children is really that funny.

It had only been a little drain on his energy, a reduction in certain minerals in his frame that happened a little faster than it should have. He could not have known that it was something so important, so _life-altering._

Tarn stared at the autodoc’s scanning screen, at the little developmental sac attached to the underside of his spark casing. Then he got up and paced, a hand pressed over the mouth-slit of his mask; he rolled in and out of his two forms, a habit natural to him, the whirling and the burning effort of his cog a familiar, grounding feeling— 

He stopped himself with a gasp, back in root mode, clasping his hands over his spark. Would that much transformation have injured the little one? The extra heat, the strain— Worriedly, he thought back over the estimated age of the spark - how much had he indulged in his morphing habit? How much engex, how much nuke...? 

The estimated age. 

Belatedly, it occurred to him to think about how a spark could have budded in the first place, and there could be no avoiding that damning proof. He knew when he had conceived. He knew whose child it was. 

...What had he been thinking that night? What could have possibly gone so wrong in his head? 

He remembered that he had gotten a brief communique from his lord earlier that day. It had been thousands of years since Megatron had made direct contact. How Tarn had longed for just one brief call on his lord's dedicated communicator, or even a recorded video, if not a video comm... But it was only a brief message telling him that he was doing good work for the Cause and his progress was satisfactory. 

He should have been ecstatic, and part of him was, certainly, but there was something in the vague brevity of it that had left him wondering if Lord Megatron was even aware of what the team had really been doing at all, the sacrifices that they'd made and the struggles that they constantly underwent. He felt...neglected. He would have said "unloved," but there had never... 

He was temporarily insane, destabilized in mind and spark from the impact of that brief letter, and that was why he had let Pharma into himself that night. 

* * *

Pharma wasn't certain how long he had been lying on the examination room table. Thankfully, it was after hours and no one would be needing it for anything. He didn't even need to be on the table, really. He'd just ended up there when he'd needed to...not be standing while he contemplated what had happened. What was happening. 

He was ensparked. There it was, attached to the chamber, perfectly healthy, developing normally. And he knew exactly when it had been conceived, without even checking the estimated date of ignition. Why, out of all the times when that impotent monster had abused him, had it happened that time? When it had been as unabusive as he could imagine it being? 

It had to have been the way that Tarn had spoken to him the entire night, the way he had kept up the smooth stream of his voice while they had taken each other over and over. Pharma’s spark had been as helpless against it as always, but Tarn had swelled it with pleasure instead of with pain. Pharma had trembled from the inside out the entire night, unable to rest for long; he had needed to come again and again, needed touch to make the interior pleasure into something outwardly felt. Some of what Tarn had said had been unabashedly filthy - delightfully so - but it was woven throughout long murmurs of admiration and appreciation that he had never expected to hear from his tormentor. 

And Tarn had let Pharma into his valve without any hesitation or condition, urging Pharma to come inside him as many times as they both wanted. He couldn't help reciprocating, opening eagerly where before he'd required force before he submitted... 

That had been the last time that they'd been together. He assumed that Tarn had gone off on one of his extended hunts, as he regularly did. Pharma had certainly not slept with anyone else since then. There could be no doubt of what had happened. 

It was best to terminate a spark as early on in the build as possible, less traumatic all around. It was a simple procedure, one that he could do himself. Right now. With only his integrated tools. Without anyone else even knowing about it. All he had to do was open his chest and make a few quick cuts. He didn't even need to aim a camera in there. 

…Yet he wasn't doing it. He was lying on the examination table, mortified at what had happened to him and now compounding it with the discomfort of guilt. 

Why feel guilty over terminating a Decepticon torturer's offspring? Tarn was arguably more warped than the average Decepticon. His brain module was surely defective. He was certainly twisting up most of his components with his various self-destructive habits; his transfluid, while obviously fertile, had to be ill-made. A child that was part Tarn was sick from the beginning and could have no hope of growing up normally. It would be a mercy to everyone, maybe even to the sparkling itself, if it just ended here. 

And yet he stared up at the darkened lamp over the table and continued to not terminate the spark. 

It was stupid, to think that this spark was something special just because Tarn had never been tender and giving and gentle before that night, and maybe never would be again. That night was like a slice from some other life where the two of them were not enemies and didn't need to be cruel to each other. The war didn't exist. Factions didn't exist. Pain didn't exist. He hated Tarn still, but he felt unable to fully hate the Tarn that he had known for those few hours. Nothing had truly changed between them, but… 

He couldn't shake the sense that the spark was innocent of its sire’s evil, as if the circumstances of its conception had kept it pure. 

Almost unwillingly, he remembered— How the torturer had praised him, settled him on the bed and asked Pharma to pleasure his own valve, and the sound of his voice made things so sweet and desperate— And Tarn had not sat across the room from him, coldly amused as he had been in the past when he'd commanded Pharma to try and arouse himself before the pain began. Tarn sat next to him, leaning in, watching Pharma's face as his pleasure rose, close enough to smell the hot oil running over Pharma's valve-petals. The jet gasped, held back from his peak by Tarn's words, yet the frustration made the sensations even more blissful. Tarn leaned close to his ear and whispered of how wet he was getting from watching Pharma, and Pharma had glanced up from his hands and seen that Tarn _had his panels open_ and was stroking his own spreading petals; his claws transformed back into blunt fingertips just as they slid deeper into the center and made oil well up around them— 

The sight had been so overwhelming that Pharma's hands began to scrabble frantically over his own array, three fingers shoved inside of himself and one hand rubbing furiously across all of his unfolded protoform, his body shaking with effort as he watched Tarn's legs spread wider, the tank’s fingers sliding deeper as that voice encouraged him to go faster, harder. Oil spurted out from around Pharma's fingers as he came with a strangled sob, his whole body hitching as if every part of himself needed that satisfaction. And Tarn had purred with appreciation and murmured, _Oh, dear one, if not for my mask I would drink every drop of that out of you, you are so beautiful._

Impulse had struck him then, a wild desire to test Tarn's bizarre kindness and restraint. Pharma leaned forward, pulling his hands free of his still-spread valve, and pressed them against the mouth-slit of Tarn's mask. Tarn's eyes widened and the tank leaned back as if the jet's strength was really enough to force him down across the pillows piled at the head of the bed. Pharma could feel the air moving through his fingers as Tarn opened his mouth and breathed in hard through it, drawing in the scent of Pharma's spill. 

He had crawled up onto Tarn's torso, enjoying the feel of his enemy passive beneath him, and he tested Tarn again by wrapping his fingers around the upthrust horns of the Decepticon brand on his face and kissing him over his mouth, licking his own oil off the mask, smearing himself messily across it. Tarn's gaze softened with desire, and Pharma was surprised when Tarn unlatched something in the mask and lifted up the faceplate, hiding his eyes; the opening was just enough for Tarn to gently take him by the wrist and slide his fingers underneath to touch the Decepticon's mouth. Pharma felt him, the actual flexmetal of his face - soft lips kissing his sensitive fingertips, then bringing them closer and sucking on them, then bringing them deeper still. He adored Pharma's fingers with his entire mouth, stroking his warm tongue across them, lightly scraping them with his parted fangs, sealing his lips tight around the knuckles. Pharma arched his back, bowing his body inward against Tarn's as the sensation overwhelmed him, his spark feeling brighter inside of himself even without Tarn's voice making it tremble and throb. 

Then he felt Tarn parting his legs and lifting his hips, as if offering, and the second part of Pharma’s panels transformed away. His spike was immediately, painfully hard. Tarn released his wrist as Pharma hastily backed down the length of Tarn's body to slide between those powerful thighs, but he kept that one hand stretched upward, under the mask, as he pushed himself hip-deep with one strong thrust and a cry of need. He kissed Tarn with his fingers, stroking over his hungry mouth, teasing his lips and pressing inward to tangle with his tongue, feeling both of Tarn’s openings yielding before him. Tarn curled upward, vents roaring with heat, trying to meet every thrust, but Pharma could not settle on a rhythm. The wetness and the curving depths of the tank's valve were so perfect; the kiss was sublime. He panted frantically against Tarn's biolights, nearly blinded as he pressed his face against them. His hips moved with increasing strength that did nothing to shift the tank's far greater weight. Tarn whispered against Pharma's fingertips, his tongue flicking out to run across them. 

Pharma screamed as he poured himself out inside his enemy’s frame. 

* * *

Tarn sat before the still-frozen picture on the autodoc screen, his face in his hands, trying to convince himself that he could not keep the spark and failing, affection already welling up inside of him despite its origins. Was he compromised so badly? 

He remembered how good it had been, to let himself drop into whatever insanity had taken him. It had been such a relief to give up, just for a little while - to tell Pharma how admirable he was, how strong and brilliant and worthy of every good thing. He remembered how he had taken Pharma from behind with a gentleness so uncharacteristic of him, murmuring praise straight into his Autobot's spark as his hands smoothed over those lean hips. Pharma was on all fours, begging for him, and he had delighted in the slide of his spike through that tight opening as he pulled himself entirely free, leaving only the curve of his tip still inside Pharma’s grasp, then pressed inward in one long slide until the curves of the spread protoform pressed hard against him, over and over— 

* * *

—And how divine that felt, feeling how far Tarn's long, thick cable penetrated into him, how his body had to spread and flex just to accommodate it and then folded itself back up in its wake as it pulled back. It felt so good, to hold it in himself, all of it - it had never been good before, but he wanted it now, was on his hands and knees and pushing back against it out of need as he begged for it in rough whispers. Tarn's voice filled him along with that length, telling him how wonderful he was, how clever and fierce. 

Pharma's spike had become fully erect again just from the memory of taking Tarn's valve. As he had turned away on the bed to wordlessly ask his mate to mount him, he’d seen the bright silver of his transfluid dripping down Tarn's thighs as the tank lifted himself off of his back. The sight of it was so piercing that he suffered from it, clenching around the thickness that filled him to capacity while his own member trembled in the empty air, shedding cleaning fluid from its tip. He shifted his weight to one hand so that the other could reach underneath himself, wanting to milk out his lust and spill it all over the ruined bedcovers, but Tarn's hand intercepted his. Caressingly, the tank wove their fingers together so that they gripped each other, his speed picking up; he held Pharma in place with a gentle yet unbreakable grip, thrusting deep and grinding hard against the jet’s firm petals. Pharma's internals were shoved out of place around it and he let out a gasping cry of ecstasy. 

"I want you to keep that ready for me, my dear. I want you to make me feel it just like I'm making you feel this now. I want you in me again. _I need it._ " 

And Pharma felt his components spread even farther around the sudden powerful rush of Tarn's outpouring into him, fluid pushing his valve even wider— 

* * *

It was perfect, to ask for that and then to take it and enjoy it. He'd spread himself on all fours, still leaking Pharma's spill from before, and he'd lowered his shoulders, trying to lift his backside higher into the air. He'd lain under Pharma's lighter weight, his limbs unmoved despite how the jet scrabbled against his armor, shifting his grip over and over as he crouched above Tarn's rear, leaning forward to hump harder and then back as if trying to penetrate deeper, always frantically thrusting with desperate speed into Tarn's body. 

The only part of the tank that moved was his softened cable, which flopped beneath him, firming slowly, as the bed shook under Pharma's efforts. Oh, how he had needed this; how Pharma's spike made him arch and drip and harden and beg— 

Pharma leaned back with another strangled scream, cable twitching and throbbing against the clasping petals as he emptied himself again. Tarn's valve easily contained his entire load - all but a single drop, squeezed out between them and falling alone to the bedspread. 

Tarn's erection jerked to full hardness and let out an explosive burst of fluid, spraying so hard that it speckled thickly across his chin. 

* * *

It had never been good to surrender to Tarn's ministrations before, but it was good now, so good to let himself weave into a single mass of desire with his tormentor. His equipment ached so sweetly in memory of its use. His spark felt so warm and comforted as that voice cradled it, as if gentle fingers caressed the interior of its casing. Tarn caressed his armor as well, holding him affectionately on his lap as their wrung-dry systems regenerated more fluid for them to use. Tarn sang softly, words that Pharma's dozing mind didn't bother to register, and his large hand tenderly pulled on Pharma's spike. Pharma let himself gradually harden, relaxing into the sensation until he came dry with a soft whimper. Tarn gave the tip of the member an affectionate rub of his thumb and let it sag across his hand as his fingers dipped beneath it to rub the curls of Pharma's closing valve. One of Tarn's fingertips was able to fit inside his pucker, lazily moving in and out, curling down to stroke the inside of the petals, asking Pharma to open for him without words. 

* * *

He could barely remember all that they had done on that night of beautiful madness. He remembered cradling the full weight of Pharma's body in his arms, kneeling, pressing into him as he lay exhausted yet still begging; he remembered coming twice in a row then, first as Pharma’s blissful peak stroked his spike, and again when he saw an unspeakably beautiful expression spread across the jet’s face as Tarn’s ejaculate filled him. 

He remembered being on his back again, snarling and starved as if his valve had not been fed all night, wanting it harder and more savage, wanting Pharma to break his limbs against Tarn's body with the force of his thrusting. Pharma had loosed a brief spurt of his climax into Tarn's valve, then pulled out and, with the wild eyes of a mechanimal claiming its mate, sprayed the rest of it across Tarn's belly and half-hard spike. The sight of his lover-enemy's thick silver dripping down his own length overwhelmed him with lust; the transfluid eased the passage of his fist along his cable as he mindlessly urged himself to come in response. 

He remembered the end of the night, when the sun was beginning to lighten the sky above Messatine's icy mountains and they had lain half-dozing amid all their mess. Pharma had curled in on himself and Tarn had curled around him in turn, one arm across his lover's narrow waist. Their panels had been left open, though some attempt had been made to wipe themselves clean. Tarn felt his spike beginning to emerge from its housing, interest stirring inside it again even though the rest of him had collapsed. Knowing that he had permission, he gently wrapped his hand around Pharma's uppermost thigh and lifted it enough to expose his opening. He shifted, just to line himself up, until he felt his tip rubbing against the half-folded petals. Pharma made a sleepy murmur and began to flex open slowly; when he had spread just enough to admit the spike, Tarn moved closer, pressing the head through the lazy grip of the protoform. He began to extend himself directly into Pharma's body, feeling the steady forward movement of his growing erection pressing his lover open before him. 

He saw Pharma's spike-tip emerging as his petals began to spread, the limp cable curving down from his groin as Tarn’s member reached its full length inside of him. It began to firm as Tarn made a few small, gentle thrusts. The tank climaxed with a quiet moan, his body motionless except for the hand tightening around Pharma's lifted thigh, only the throbbing of the spike-root outside the valve revealing what was happening within. He overflowed his lover, as always, and as the silver began to escape the clutch of the petals and river steadily down the back of Pharma's leg, the smaller mech’s spike lifted itself into full hardness. With a contented sigh, Pharma released a long, shining stream of ejaculate in a beautiful arch over the sheets. Tarn left himself extended, hardness collapsing inside the warmth of Pharma's body, and after lowering Pharma's leg he settled his hand loosely around his lover's soft cable, rubbing the silver droplets across its tip. 

* * *

Curled on his side on the examination table, remembering that last sleepy coupling with his hand around his spike and a jet of his fluid cooling across the table and floor, Pharma grumbled his engine in irritation. Yes, it had been the most magnificent episode of lovemaking that he'd ever had in his life. He still blamed Tarn's voice, despite the extended periods when Tarn had been rendered completely unable to speak. He didn’t want to accept responsibility for the degree of enthusiasm that he’d displayed that night. 

He told himself that the pleasure of its conception was the only reason why he was keeping the spark. 

* * *

What would it mean, if the commander of the Decepticon Justice Division bore the offspring of an Autobot? He might be lucky and the child would resemble him more than its sire, but he could not guarantee it. It might be unmistakably an Autobot. 

He reasoned that Pharma himself could not be made to defect, but perhaps his genius could still be claimed as a weapon for the Cause. Surely the sparkling would have a measure of its sire's radiant intellect, and even a fraction of Pharma's mind would be several cuts above that of an ordinary mech. His worries lifted as he settled into that explanation, imagining himself raising their sparkling to live in perfect obedience and love for the Cause, just as Tarn lived. 

He’d never thought of having a successor before, of making the post of Tarn dynastic, with his child already trained to take up the mantle if Tarn should ever fall in the hunt. A tension, previously unarticulated, seemed to relax inside of him. If he died and his sparkling took up his name, something of himself would remain at his post, continuing to serve his master beyond his death. The thought was such a comfort to him that he clasped his hands over his spark (and his brand) and curled his body inward as if he could hug the little lump of nanites with all of his strength. 

He would not defend its sire, and he knew that he was likely to face censure if the sparkling's origin came to light...but he already loved it dearly, and felt his spark opening to embrace it. 

* * *

The problem of what to do with the sparkling once it emerged found an accidental solution a month later, when First Aid was so distressed on the floor one morning that he was having trouble interacting properly with the patients. When Pharma finally pulled the nurse into a storage closet, First Aid's visor actually began to shed spark-tears. 

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Pharma asked, almost more dismayed now than annoyed. 

"The baby lichen," First Aid sobbed. "It... It died last night. While I was defragging. I just woke up and..." 

Reflexively providing comfort, Pharma let his hand settle on First Aid's shoulder. "This was the one that you rescued a couple of weeks ago?" 

"Yes! I thought it was responding so well! I figured out the feeding formula, and the wounds were healing over and..." He pressed his face into his hands and shook. 

Pharma petted his shoulder and firmly resisted the urge to say something like _it was only a lichen, they grow all over and are practically a pest species, just grab another one from the next flock that trashes the satellite array if you want one cluttering up your quarters that badly._ First Aid always took in injured strays and became completely attached to them as individuals, so it wasn't possible to replace his projects with some other instance of the same species. They died so easily, though - the poor mech was practically setting himself up for constant sparkbreak, yet he still— Pharma's petting slowed as a thought began to coalesce inside his mind. 

"Here, Nurse," he tried. "They, ah, grow in soil or somesuch, don't they? Perhaps it might be best to…honor it by putting it back where it would have lived in the wild. Don't you think that would be proper?" 

"Yes, that'd be best," First Aid said, trying to wipe his face and mostly just smearing soot across more of his faceplate. Pharma pulled out a polishing cloth and handed it over. "Thank you. Yes, I'll...I'll bury it up on the mountain after my shift." Oh thank frag, the weird little organic corpse wouldn't be in the clinic or somehow tainting the metal supply in the smelter. Success! "I'm so sorry, I just... It hit me hard. I couldn't be there for it." 

"There, there, dear," Pharma said, patting him a little more. "It's very kind of you to care." If only he could care somewhere that wasn't inside the clinic, but probably that was too much to ask. 

Ambulon poked his head in through the supply closet door. "Everything okay?" 

Pharma turned toward him to gently explain First Aid's lichen problem while giving the nurse a moment to pull himself together. As he did so, his hand unconsciously rubbed his canopy, over his spark. 

* * *

Tarn regularly retreated to the medbay, not only to monitor the sparkling’s growth but also to just aim an autodoc camera at it and sit for a while, gazing adoringly at the tiny, glowing blob hanging from his spark chamber. It had attached a little off-center. He loved that, that perfect little imperfection. 

The spark itself was a beautiful shade of blue, and he couldn't help but wonder if Pharma's spark was the same lovely color. 

…Perhaps he could force the Autobot to show him, when he next made it back to Messatine. It wasn't as if he was going to continue being as gentle as he had been during their last night together. That had been a temporary madness and it was best to forget that it had ever happened. 

He tried keeping his condition a secret for maybe a week, fearful that the rest of his team would want details about the spark's paternity, but...he figured that they probably didn't know any more about sparkling development than he did, before he'd done all that research after finding out that he was carrying. They'd made some stops on a couple of outposts a while ago, and he might be able to insist that, when they'd all gone their separate ways for harmless entertainment as they sometimes did on appropriately loyal posts, Tarn had had a bit of an indiscretion and found himself with an accident that he'd decided to keep. 

It was too hard to hide it anyway. He'd read that sparklings developed sense organs and consciousness very early on and could therefore learn things while they were still attached to a carrier's spark. Consequently, he kept finding himself talking to it, singing to it, playing calming classical music on his integrated speakers for it. They were already looking at him a little strangely, clearly wondering why he was even more delighted to be working his hardest for the Cause than he usually was. 

And so, he finally called them together in the medbay to make the announcement. The team huddled together in the small room, curious. Tarn gathered himself and said, "Team, I have been hiding something from you that I cannot keep to myself any longer." They leaned in when his armor began to move deep in his chest, transforming away layer by layer until finally the outermost layer cracked apart and shifted away, revealing the green glow of his spark. After a moment, Vos, who was the most conveniently-sized for getting a close view, pointed and exclaimed his discovery. 

"Yes," Tarn said softly, his EM field glowing with carrier-ly warmth. "I am ensparked." 

Gasps. After a moment, Tesarus sighed and grumped, "Dammit, it's so tiny, I'm never gonna get to hold it." 

"I can hold it!" Helex said. "I've got tiny hands!" He made comparatively tiny jazz hands down by his waist. 

"Showoff," Tesarus grumped again, clonging his shoulder against the smelter's. 

Meanwhile, Vos was clinging to Kaon's hand and clearly trying to describe the view in detail to his sightless comrade. The language barrier eventually got a bit too high and Kaon pulled free, petting him on the helm. "Thanks. You tried." He was holding the Pet back by its collar, as the lobotomized creature was whuffing and sniffing and clearly wanted to crawl up into Tarn’s chest to get a closer look. It wasn't really a sparkeater - they just kept it painted like one - but it did have a weakness for shiny things. 

"Everyone will get to hold it," Tarn reassured them, touched that no one had gone for the obvious question of parentage. "You will simply need to be very careful. Particularly because I will instantly and painfully destroy anyone who puts the tiniest scratch on my child." 

"Totally makes sense," Tesarus said, breaking off the shoving match that he'd started up with Helex. 

Vos wondered what this meant for the upcoming hunt in a week or so. Tarn paused. That...was something that he hadn't adequately considered. He'd been too busy happily telling his offspring how to work the navigational array and reading the whole List to it in cute singsong tones. 

"Ooh. Yeah." Helex frowned. "I mean, _delicate_ isn't the right word..." 

"Yeah, _fragile_ 's not the right word either, but..." Tesarus made an "eeh" expression and accompanying hand gesture. 

"It's a concern," Kaon decided. "We're concerned." 

Tarn considered this. " _I_ am neither delicate nor fragile...but yes, my sparkling is. However..." He struggled against the treacherous part of himself that latched onto this situation as the perfect excuse to avoid the worst part of his work. At last, he wouldn't have to be there during the execution, wouldn't have to posture and pretend that he loved seeing a living, screaming person reduced to fragments of body and mind! He could stay back and do paperwork— 

No. He couldn't. The spark was capable of thinking and learning, and Tarn's spark was its primary source of information. He could not use it as an excuse to indulge in cowardice, as that would only teach it that cowardice was acceptable. For the sake of his offspring, as well as for the Cause, Tarn needed to remain stronger than ever. "...I feel that it would be wrong of me to not be present for executions, as such is the purpose of our work. Perhaps, for the sake of caution, I will only involve myself after the prey has been secured. We must all be there, as always." He knew that he'd made the right decision when his team smiled proudly at him. 

"I'm kind of curious, though, about the sire?" Kaon asked. Tarn spooled up the most useful deflection that he'd thought of, but it turned out to be unnecessary when Tesarus shoved Kaon roughly from behind. 

"Hey, don't ask him that. If he wanted us to know who it was, he woulda said already. It's not important." 

Tarn's spark warmed. "Thank you, Tesarus. Yes, I cannot fault Kaon's curiosity, but I wish for the spark's parentage to remain unimportant. It is a child of the Cause, and will be raised as such." 

* * *

Tarn resented Pharma constantly. Their spark could have received the best obstetric care in the galaxy from its sire, who would be able to determine practically at a glance if everything was going properly. Instead, it was all up to Tarn, who had to divide his blank stares between a dense medical manual and the autodoc's latest battery of scans. As far as he could determine, the sparkling was developing perfectly on schedule. It was now attached to his spark casing with its newly-formed magnets and was absorbing the nanoconstruction fluid inside the gestation sac. Despite all the changes, it still looked much as it had for a while now - a pale, inert sphere. 

Damn Pharma and his political affiliation. And damn the gestational coding too, which kept insisting that the spark’s sire was the most trustworthy person to rely on for everything. He considered it perfectly rational to let his teammates help with his examinations, but instead found himself locking the medbay doors and doing everything himself, awkwardly, usually with mirrors and extra cameras to be sure that he didn't nick anything important. He didn't want anyone else close to the sparkling, no matter how firmly he reminded himself that his team was much more kindly disposed toward it than its other parent would be. 

Pharma’s sire coding would activate if he ever learned about this situation, but Tarn was sure that he’d make himself insufferable regardless. No doubt he’d be constantly gloating over how the mighty Justice Division Commander had been ensparked by a helpless Autobot victim. Maybe he could be trusted to remain somewhat professional about it all, but the spark was still better off without its sire. However, needing to avoid Pharma put him in the awkward position of not being able to return to Messatine until after it separated. 

Really, though, all that he needed on Messatine were the quality t-cogs that his toy provided and the professional level of cog replacement that he'd come to rely on. Those wouldn’t be necessary anyway, as he’d realized that his morphing habit (just a habit, not an addiction) was unhealthy for many reasons. He couldn’t risk the impact on his sparkling’s development. He knew that it would be very difficult to stop - he'd grown to not even think about it over the millennia, to just feel the nervousness rising and begin to burn it off by shifting and shifting. He was practiced enough now that he could do nearly anything between transformations. 

But now, when he felt the craving begin to hit - a craving for transformation or for any of the substances that he'd come to rely on - he would press his hand over his chest and imagine that he could feel the pulse of the second spark beside his own. It grounded him. It reminded him that he was no longer alone, no longer accountable only to himself in the end. His offspring depended on him, learned from him, would take him as its example in its perfect innocence. It could not defend itself against him if he made poor choices. 

He could not falter. For its sake, if not for his own or even for the Cause's, he had to make himself perfect even when there was no one else around to judge him. 

In the same vein, he steadfastly refused to think about anything...intimately exciting. That was actually more difficult to avoid than the other habits were. He hadn't realized how often he used to relax that way, usually by thinking of the majesty of his lord or the justness of the Cause…or sometimes about Pharma’s many admirable features that were all tainted by his choice of alignment. If the sparkling learned through its experience of its carrier’s spark and frame, what would it make of an explosion of lust and satisfaction blazing through its barely-developed body? He took to pressing his hand against his chest when he got those kinds of cravings too, but more out of a weird impulse to shield its still-developing sensory arrays against thoughts and sensations that were definitely not appropriate for bitlets. 

He'd read that pregnancy could make couples and trines practically wild for each other, but he doubted that that was even a coding thing and more just a byproduct of happiness. Also, it was only an urban legend that regular infusions of the sire's fluids were needed to make a sparkling develop properly, so Tarn was not concerned about a practical need for a sire. He just...had trouble not thinking about less practical needs. And with keeping his hands off of himself. 

There was no reason why it should be so difficult to _not_ fantasize about Pharma, no matter how perfect their last night together had been. And yet, he longed to reenact the penetrations that had led to the spark’s conception, and also to pick up his smaller lover and plunge in full-length until his climax overflowed down Pharma’s backside. He kept thinking of more positions that he wished they’d tried. He wanted to see if he could fit Pharma’s spike underneath his unlocked mask so he could lick up the jet's stream directly from the source. He wanted to couple frantically with every part of his mate somehow, irrationally hungry for it, imagining Pharma lying exhausted on their bed with every type of slick that Tarn could produce across his hands, his wings, his face, his thighs and feet, the lean lines of his hips and turbine, the slats of his shoulder vents— He wanted more of that night, and he was ashamed of it, and whenever his mind casually drifted back into fantasy he would remain soaking in it for a few delicious seconds before catching himself and worrying about what he was teaching his child with such unwholesome thoughts. The strict celibacy was making him even more jittery than the lack of transformation and controlled substances. 

Having lost all of his previous coping mechanisms, Tarn now had to rely on the spark itself to keep him soothed and balanced, calming himself with the virtuous things that he did to please it. He'd been reading _Towards Peace_ out loud to it for a while now, slowly working through the chapters, and imagined that it was listening. Of course, it needed breaks from heavy political theory once in a while. 

" _Hush, little bitlet, don't say a word / Parent's gonna buy you a lileth-bird / And if that lileth-bird don't sing / Parent's gonna buy you a golden ring..._ " He was filtering through deep space scans, searching for the ion trail of their fleeing quarry. 

"That's the cutest thing I've ever seen, by the way," Helex said in passing, poking his head through the open door. 

"I admit that I feel a little ambivalent about a song describing the rape of the capitalist economic system for the amusement of ruling-class children," Tarn confessed. "But I really do like the tune itself. He seems to like it too." It always felt like the blob on his spark was slowly rocking itself to the rhythm of the lullaby. "Maybe I can work on developing more socially responsible lyrics." 

" _Well, little bitlet, may as well cry_ ," Helex ventured. " _Parent's off to work the triple shift, bye?_ " 

"Brilliant! Develop that and put a copy on my desk. My child needs more age-appropriate educational material." 

* * *

He hated Tarn. All the time. Not that it was really possible to hate him more than he hated him before, but he just seemed to notice it more often now, and it felt even more personal. Maybe because Tarn was only inside him intermittently before, while now, technically, Tarn was inside him all the time. 

The hate was always accompanied by guilt. No matter how he felt about its sire, it was true that the spark could not be blamed for its own conception. And it was giving him the most perfect pregnancy imaginable - it never twitched or throbbed or threatened to detach suddenly for no reason, the way difficult sparks could do the entire time they were gestating. It stayed completely unobtrusive, enough so that it was possible to forget that it was even there for long stretches of time. He felt guilty about that too, wondering if it could detect his hatred and sense of inconvenience through his own spark. Maybe it understood that he planned to give it up to First Aid as soon as it emerged and that he hoped that it would feel the least attachment possible toward him. Maybe it even knew that he sometimes still thought about terminating it when he worried that it would never have a decent quality of life. 

Yet he could not make himself stop hating and worrying, and he grieved on behalf of the spark because he sensed that it was learning unwantedness from him. It couldn't help but wish to be wanted. It wanted to survive, and being wanted by its caregiver was the only way that it knew to guarantee that. 

He kneaded the armor around his canopy, trying to soothe it but unwilling to open himself up and look at it because that always made him feel even worse. "Don't worry," he kept saying to it, almost daily now. "I'm going to give you to someone who will love you very, very much. He’ll take care of you the way you deserve to be cared for. He’ll be everything that I can’t be for you. Everything will be alright, I promise. I’m sorry for…everything.” He felt it moving a little when he talked to it, leaning toward his hand as if it was longing to be touched, loved, and petted like a sparkling should be. 

He hated himself quite often too. 

His coding kept insisting that Tarn was the safest person to have around during his carry, but Pharma felt ill at the thought of Tarn being warped even further by active sire coding. He’d likely treat Pharma like a disposable wrapper around his offspring, no doubt insisting that Autobots were predisposed toward being receptive vessels for Decepticon fertility or some such disgusting idiocy. Tarn was the kind of person who would believe that stupid urban legend about sparklings needing their sire’s fluids to develop properly, so he’d probably be trying to hump Pharma constantly _for his own good._ And he’d probably try to take the sparkling as soon as it emerged in order to raise it to be the same kind of rabid ideologue as himself. 

At least Tarn seemed to be staying away for an unusually long time. The monster should have needed his ragged t-cog replaced quite a while ago. He felt a surge of giddy glee at the thought that Tarn had perhaps died in the line of duty. 

…Would it even be useful to imagine what Tarn would be like if he were not a ragingly evil political zealot? Was Tarn even anyone at all apart from that, given how he’d apparently sacrificed everything he’d been for the sake of his Cause? 

He remembered now that Tarn actually had some culture underneath his encrusted political garbage. He knew about classical music and theater and literature, was familiar with the culinary trends of pre-war society, had kept up on a variety of topics that were now rather quaintly out of date given how Cybertronian art had been one of the first casualties of the war. It was strange that Tarn cared about any of those things, given how - apart from their leader’s alleged poetry - Decepticons believed that art was a parasitic luxury and felt justified in razing every gallery and museum that they could find. Tarn was like a bizarre time capsule, keeping culture contained inside himself where it could remain untouched by his faction’s predations. People like him might unpack that hoarded knowledge to give art back to a post-war society, if they were inclined to improve others' lives at all. 

Pharma’s sparkling could benefit from its sire’s knowledge, if only Tarn was clean of his ideological filth. He imagined Tarn singing opera from memory, songs that no one else living had bothered to remember, and watching their child go rapt with wonder. He imagined Tarn teaching their little one how to paint or draw, showing it the mathematical principles that had made Golden Age art so elegant. While he was imagining the utterly impossible, why not fantasize about Tarn being able to cook so that their child could experience delicacies from all the different culinary schools of their dead world, developing a deeply refined palate? Oh, Tarn could be a wonderful parent if only he were a remotely decent person. Instead, he was just a slavishly obedient torturer and worth absolutely nothing at all. 

However, he fucked like a pit-blessed champion, and the sparkling might not need his fluids but Pharma sure could have used them quite a few times. Sometimes he’d be in his quarters and would suddenly think of some delicious thing that they’d done - or that he wished they’d done - and he'd pull back his panels no matter what he was doing, hook a couple fingers into his valve, and get off with only a few quick strokes. It was the same with his spike, and he'd shamefully jacked it into a cloth more than a few times inside the storage closet off the main medbay. He hated Tarn even more because the torturer had actually had the capacity to be a caring, passionate, _creative_ lover all this time, but he never had been until…whatever had caused that complete change in his personality that night. 

Then Pharma would feel guilty all over again because of the sense of warmth from the second spark in his chest after he climaxed, when the little one reached out to savor the feeling of its parents joined in bliss and found no one there but Pharma. 

He longed for the day when it would separate and he could finally give it to First Aid to be loved. He wished that he was capable of love, but perhaps the ability had been lost somewhere, or maybe he'd only believed himself capable of it and yet he wasn't, not when it mattered. He wanted his inadequate self to be out of its life entirely so that it could begin healing from all of the things that had filled his spark while it was within him. 

* * *

Tarn was in the midst of terrifying the mayor of a neutral satellite-city, the rest of his team clustered at his back to add heft to his gentle hints toward obedience, when suddenly he lifted his fingers to his audial to indicate an incoming internal comm. "Ah, Mayor, do forgive me, but we shall have to take up our conversation again later. I am being contacted by someone who cannot be made to wait. I shall call you again tomorrow. Until then, do carefully consider my terms." He reached out and terminated the video call. 

"Megatron?" Kaon asked hopefully but quietly, so as not to distract Tarn during the call. It was a bit irregular, as Tarn kept a long-distance communicator expressly for Megatron's use, but naturally the leader of the Cause could contact his Justice Division in any way that he wanted. 

"No." Tarn sounded a little strained and pressed his hand against his chest. "The sparkling's emerging." 

Everybody visibly suppressed panic, though luckily Tarn had drilled the others in various emergence scenarios so that they could help him when it happened. Once again, he bitterly cursed Pharma for not being around to lend both his medical expertise and the comfort of his sire coding. He focused on rhythmic ventilations to keep himself calm and was able to walk to the medbay under his own power, so clearly nothing was going wrong. He could simply feel the little one beginning to creep around on the outside of his spark casing, having demagnetized himself for the first time in order to search for a way to the outside world. 

Tarn sat down underneath the autodoc's extensions as Helex keyed in a series of codes to keep various scans running and arrange cameras in front of Tarn's chest. The tank was already retracting the layers of armor over his spark, watching the holoscreens linked to the camera feeds to be sure that they were viewing useful angles. He leaned back when his chest was fully opened, but the light of his spark prevented him from seeing much on the screens apart from some kind of movement on the edge of the corona. "Can you see him?" 

Vos was the natural choice of assistant, being the smallest and most dexterous. Kaon stood over him, prepared to use his echolocation to track the sparkling if he were to move into the darker parts of Tarn's torso. The other two monitored vitals. 

As much as he wished that he could handle the emergence entirely on his own, Tarn couldn't get the proper precision and reach to bring the sparkling out with his own hands. He knew that he needed the help, rationally, but a large part of his job now was to prevent the irrationally protective parts of his coding from going berserk before the little one was out. He needed to be somewhere dark, enclosed, warm, somewhere properly protected— He needed to lash out against anyone who was not safe, to savagely defend his offspring and keep his birthing site secure. Already, his code was eroding his trust in his team, making him only remember how skillfully Vos twisted anatomy into hellish art and how much electricity Kaon could channel into anything he touched. The sparkling was so fragile; it didn't even understand fear yet— 

Tarn gripped the armrests of the chair hard enough to warp the metal. "Please hurry," he gasped. Then he clenched down on the urge to speak because he wanted to snuff every one of their sparks. He finally had to close his eyes against the screens so that he could focus on ignoring the sensation of Vos reaching into his chest, pushing down the rage against hands touching his child that were not his own or his mate’s. 

Someone was telling him that it was okay. Someone was gently trying to pry one of his hands off the chair, and he remembered how to let go of it. His hand was turned palm-up, and something soft and perfect was deposited on it. His eyes flew open. 

There, still bathed in the green light from his open chest, was the round, white, somewhat-spherical shape of his sparkling. Its little black button eyes blinked tiredly up at him and it emitted a soft beep. 

Tarn's eyes immediately started to overflow with tears. He blinked them rapidly away, as they were making it hard for him to gaze at his child with complete adoration. "Fidelity," he said through static, naming the little one. He closed up his chest and held Fidelity against his brand, close to his spark. 

* * *

Pharma woke up out of defrag with a sudden start, his hand immediately pressing against his chest. The sparkling was moving around inside of him - he needed to help it out. Dread filled him - the knowledge that finally the time had come, the hour when he would have to separate an innocent, unsuspecting spark from the only (inadequate) comfort that it had ever known and pass it off to a stranger. But this was what he had decided, and this was for the best. Before attending to the emergence, he reached far under his bed to pull out the box that he had prepared for it. 

He was going with the story that the box had been deposited at the mine-side door of the clinic, presumably by a miner who had understandably decided that he couldn't care for it down in the pits. It would have been more realistic, Pharma supposed, to fill the box with the sorts of grubby rags that he thought were probably common down there, but he couldn't inflict that sort of environment on a newspark and used clean, soft cloths instead. The most he could do was find a battered, nondescript box that he had cleaned as much as he could without it being suspiciously sanitary. 

On the inside of the box, he'd written the only name he could think of. Originally, he'd wanted to leave it entirely up to First Aid, but felt that he needed to give the little one _something_ , some relic of its parentage that would still be mysterious enough to be untraceable…some echo of the warmth and kindness in which it had been conceived, a memory of something that was too rare to ever happen again. He'd deliberately tried to write clumsily, very unlike his normal precise script, and it was easier because his hand had been shaking at the time. 

Having arranged the cloths and the box into a nest on the table, he retrieved the emergence ramp that he'd taken from the general supply and hidden in a cabinet. His internal sensors told him that the sparkling hadn't strayed far from its original attachment point and was still exploring the outside of his casing with characteristic curiosity. He opened his chest and carefully guided the end of the ramp up to his spark, cupping it from below, the notch in the end fitting around the bundles of cabling that connected at the bottom. 

The little one instinctively detected the opening to the outside and the most efficient way toward it. It immediately headed for the ramp, following it obediently out of its carrier's chest. Pharma briefly squeezed his eyes closed, biting back another powerful wish for the sire to be here, ready to receive the sparkling and begin caring for it. Unwillingly, he glanced downward as it reached the end of the ramp and started looking around to determine where it should go next. His scans had already told him that it was healthy and perfectly formed, but now he saw it for himself with his ordinary sight - the softness of its exterior, the bright little eyes, the helplessness. Code surged in him, telling him to close himself up and bring it nearer, letting it see the exterior of the person that it had lived inside for so long so that it could begin taking a different kind of comfort from him. 

He forced the need back and picked up a cloth from the box as if having a layer of something between himself and his child could keep it from feeling its parent nearby. Carefully, he lifted it from the end of the ramp, hearing it beep confusedly inside his hand, and transferred it to the nest as quickly as he could. He turned away to hide the ramp and close his chest, but even those few moments of isolation were enough to make the little one fall into a panic. It beeped louder and louder and finally started to emit frantic bleats of staticky feedback as its attempts to communicate overloaded its small vocal hardware. 

He apologized over and over as he folded the cloths down on top of it, muffling the noise somewhat - it wouldn't overheat for a while, even in the state that it was in now - and lifted the box to begin the rush down to First Aid's quarters. Even through all the wrappings, his own spark could sense the other and felt as if it were trying to reach out; inside the bundle, the sparkling was squirming as best it could without any limbs, struggling to get free. He all but sprinted down the corridors, feeling as if he somehow had to run for miles just to get there with the newspark becoming more upset every moment. Finally, he was hammering on the nurse's door, vents heaving as panic infected him as well. He had to get his child somewhere protected if he was unable to protect it himself. 

First Aid finally answered the door, looking dazed but ready to respond to an emergency. His gaze went immediately to the box and he gasped. Pharma shoved it into his arms and tried to tell the story in some coherent way as the nurse began to fumble through the cloths, trying to extract the frantic sparkling. "Found it in— By the mine-side door— Miner's, had to be, nothing else nearby, just—" He gestured helplessly. 

"Oh no, oh no, how could they? You poor little thing." First Aid had finally uncovered the sparkling and it magnetized instantly to his hand, whimpering and desperate for any kind of comforting touch. 

Guilt kept stabbing mercilessly at Pharma's spark. Clumsily, he took hold of the side of the box, indicating the scrawl on the inside. "This..." 

"Unity," First Aid read. He had the newspark cradled against his chest, inside a bundle of some of the cloths so that it could feel even more enclosed. "Is that your name, poor thing? That's a beautiful name, Unity." 

Hearing it spoken aloud, Pharma realized that it was actually a very stupid name, and what had he even been thinking - First Aid came up with better names all the time for his weird projects. It would have been better to leave it with no remnant of himself at all. Too late now, though. He grieved for it a little more. He'd been so obsessed at the beginning with how Tarn's influence would stain their offspring, but here he was, wounding it before and after its birth and doubtlessly damaging it for life no matter how healthy it had grown. More than he could remember, he became conscious of how the practice of medicine was, to him, about the challenge and the victory against injury and death, not about nurturing or caring for others. He felt helpless. 

Unity was First Aid's child now, though. Pharma could claim no further connection to it, no matter how his spark cried out against the separation. The sparkling was finally beginning to calm down, making breathless little peeps as the nurse rocked slowly, keeping up a constant stream of soft words as he stared lovingly down at it. 

Awkwardly, Pharma was left holding the box. It was time to leave, probably. Maybe he should say something sympathetic about how terrible it was for such a wonderful child to be left on someone's doorstep. "I can keep the box for now," First Aid said, reaching out for it. "It'll make a good nest until I can find something sturdier." 

"Oh, of course. Certainly." Pharma handed it over. unable to stop looking down at the tired sparkling, unable to properly extract himself from its life. 

"Isn't he beautiful?" First Aid asked, pressing down the edge of a cloth to show Pharma its perfect little shape and its worried little eyes. 

"Yes," the jet said softly, mourning. He'd put that expression on his own child's face. "He's the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen." 

* * *

" _The wheels on the truck go round-and-round / Round-and-round / Round-and-round!_ " First Aid was singing as the sparkling, who was magnetized to his shoulder, squished to and fro with the music. 

The nearby miners - both the one on the medberth who was recovering from nearly being ripped in half and his shiftmates who had fabricated reasons to be in the clinic so they could keep him company - were singing along too. They had huge, gritty voices to go with their huge, gritty bodies, so they were making quite a cheerful racket. " _The wheels on the truck go round-and-round / All through the town!_ " 

Pharma considered stepping in and demanding that any singing should happen at an indoor volume if it had to happen at all, but the visors of nearby patients were shining happily as they watched the scene. He had a reputation for being stern, but he supposed that there was no reason to be an outright aft about it if no one really seemed bothered by the noise. 

All of the miners doted relentlessly on Unity, so much so that Pharma's story of the sparkling being left by a miner who felt unable to care for it was clearly inaccurate. Certainly, none of them would have attempted to keep a sparkling magnetized to them while actively working, but they were all so eager to help care for Unity that he could see them passing a child off between shifts so that it would always have someone looking after it regardless of where its parents were. 

The miners kept pooling cuts of their own rations to bring the sparkling extra cubes of fuel. though their industrial blend was so comparatively powerful that First Aid had to thin it down before he could let the sparkling soak it up. Their big, blunt hands proved to be deft and creative, producing dozens of knitted, woven, and stitched blankets and bags out of carefully cleaned and recycled metalmesh. Unity had learned not to fear the size and sound of them and was quite willing to stick to anybody who wanted to hold him. They always told him to drink up and grow strong so he could be a big hauler or drill rig or excavator someday. 

It took a village to raise a sparkling, some said, but clearly an entire mine would work as well. 

* * *

Tarn had transformed his claws back into rounded fingertips, and he pressed one of them over the upper end of the glass straw to trap the liquid fuel inside of it. He lifted it up and released the fuel to shower down over Fidelity, who was sitting in the half-full cube. The sparkling squealed delightedly and the fluid level in the cube dropped a little more quickly as he kept osmosing it through his nanite membrane. 

" _The treads on the tank go round-and-round / Round-and-round / Round-and-round_ ," Tarn sang softly to Fidelity, watching the little blob start to sway cheerfully to the tune. " _The treads on the tank go round-and-round / All through the town!_ " Probably most surviving members of the Cybertronian species would be shocked to know how Tarn was using his infamous voice nowadays. 

The sparkling was slowly getting enough control over his own vocalizations that he could peep simple sequences of notes, which he often did to request particular songs. He had also discovered that Tarn's audial discs were the perfect size for him to curl up in, so he often defragged while magnetized to the side of his parent's head. Tarn was so used to it now that he just swayed back and forth wherever he happened to be, singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or the still-popular "Hush, Little Bitlet" (which had better lyrics now) or some of the less-dramatic Golden Age arias. 

He poured another strawful of fuel over the sparkling, who booped adorably. Great merciless glory, but his child was the cutest thing that Tarn had ever seen. Not that he had regularly found himself around cute things over the course of his life, but Fidelity topped the list regardless. Soon he would be too big to fit in a regular cube (and, hopefully, would realize that he was too big to fit in Tarn's ear). They'd have to find a nice, deep bowl to use instead. 

* * *

Pharma happened across the little one in a side corridor - First Aid must have had something particularly delicate to do out in the ward. The sparkling had proven himself very capable of being quiet and self-entertaining. He had recently grown thumbs and had enough flexibility in the tips of his forelimbs that he was able to grip little sticks of colored minerals, which he was using to draw on a large sheet of plastipaper. Pharma hadn't been moving especially silently, and he'd paused a little too long to take in the sight of the sparkling bent over the paper with such concentration, scribbling a little, picking up another stick, scribbling some more— He wasn’t able to vanish before the sparkling looked up with those little button eyes and said, "Hello, Doctor Pharma." 

Damn. He had no way to gracefully escape now. "Ah. Hello, little one." What kind of small talk did one make with children? "What are you drawing there?" 

"You." 

He lost every train of thought for a few moments. "...Me? …Might I have a look?" 

"If you like." 

He approached cautiously, as if there was still some danger of the sparkling detecting their bond this late in his development, and knelt down beside him. The picture was very crude, but then the child's motor functions were as well. There were still the recognizable lines of facial features, his shoulder vents and chevron, even little scribbles of yellow for the gold plates on the sides of his helm. The sparkling clearly had a good memory for details. 

"That's a wonderful likeness. I'm sure that I couldn't do much better myself." 

"But you're a surgeon." 

"As much as I would like to be perfect at everything, surgery is a different kind of detailed compared to art." 

The child looked back down at the picture with new consideration. "Oh." 

"Do you enjoy drawing?" He felt a little sick at himself as he fished for details about a child that he should no longer be meddling with, but he still couldn't help doing it. 

"Some miners made these colors for me and Mama said that it was alright to use this paper. This is the first time I've tried to draw. I think I like it." 

The first thing his sparkling had tried to draw was him. Pharma's spark shriveled. "Might I ask why you felt a need to draw me?" 

"I think about you a lot." 

"…You do? Why?" 

"You seem very sad all the time. I wonder why, and I wish you didn't have to be. I wish someone could help you not be sad anymore." 

Of all the things that people considered Pharma to be, he had never heard anyone claim that he was always sad. But perhaps this was a more recently-acquired trait. "Adults…can be complicated. Sometimes, things just make us sad. It's nothing that you need to be concerned about." 

"I feel sad a lot too, though." The sparkling had picked up one of his sticks and was scrubbing at a line, trying to make it look straighter. "And when I think about - oh." Pharma looked up from the picture and froze when he saw bright tears pouring out of the sparkling's eyes. The child didn't sob, but only blinked them away as if nothing of note were happening. He reached down to one side and Pharma noticed that he was sitting on top of a crumpled cleaning rag, which...seemed to be the same kind that he'd used to make the newspark's nest before giving him away. The child pulled up a corner and carefully wiped his face clean, leaving little scorch marks on the mesh. "If I think about my carrier, this happens," he said. "It doesn't even feel like crying, though. I tell Mama that it's my eyes leaking." 

Pharma realized that he'd lifted a hand to pet the sparkling, reflexively offering comfort that even he knew how to give, but he'd stopped himself in mid-gesture. 

The sparkling looked up at him for a moment. "I think I would feel happier if I were touched," he said when Pharma was unable to lower his hand either toward or away from the child. "I like being touched. I think you might feel better too." 

It was a relief to hear the solemn, correct observation that gave him permission to continue. He gently stroked the sparkling's head and back, and he was so very soft. Pharma did indeed feel better as he petted the sparkling, especially knowing that he was being soothing at the same time. Was it even alright for him to do this with a child that he'd abandoned? The sparkling half-closed his eyes and emitted a peaceful tone. 

"You're a very perceptive person," Pharma said softly after a while. 

"I like people. I like to pay attention to them. Is that bad?" 

"No, no." Pharma felt as if he could go on like this, gently petting the sparkling, for the rest of the day. "Artists are often very perceptive people." 

"Would it make you happy if I grew up to be an artist?" 

"You should grow up to be whatever you end up being. Don't worry about me. I'm just...a sad kind of person, I suppose." 

The sparkling looked down at his picture. "I wish I could figure out how to make things look less...flat." 

"Have you tried varying the pressure?" 

"The pressure?" 

"When you draw. I'm not an artist, but I know this much. Here, look." He carefully turned the plastipaper over to avoid smearing the drawing. "Hold onto a stick and I'll show you." The sparkling picked up a color in his simple little hand and Pharma gently took hold of it, guiding it to press hard on one end of a line and lightly on the other in a smooth transition. He was becoming too involved with the little one, he knew, and he should stop— He swallowed a lump in his throat and guided the hand to make an arch of color transition, as if shading part of a curve. "You see? Shadow and light—" 

The sparkling gasped with joy. "I can make shapes!" Pharma released his hand and, to compensate for his poor motor control, the sparkling held the stick with both hands and was able to scribble a gradient. "Oh, wow! Thank you, Doctor Pharma!" 

"It's no trouble, it's—" A vision suddenly rose up in him of Tarn teaching their child how to draw - Tarn if he were not a monster, if he were kind and giving like he had been only once. Pleasant classical music playing, hardcopy books of Old Master paintings scattered nearby, Tarn gently guiding the sparkling's hand— Something fell on his wrist and he realized that his eyes were streaming. He leaned back before any tears could hit the sparkling. 

The little one looked up, and then he stood, picked up the cloth he'd been sitting on, and reached up to offer it. "Here." 

"Thank you. That's very kind." Pharma accepted it and wiped his face, making himself smile. "I'm not doing very well at convincing you that I'm not actually sad all the time." 

"It's okay. You don't have to be happy all the time either." 

It occurred to Pharma that his child was probably smarter than he was, even if he grew up to be a non-academic. "Thank you for letting me borrow your cloth," he said as he handed it back. 

The little one hugged it and ran a hand over its slightly worn weave. "It's nice, isn't it? I like it because it's so wonderful and soft. It's one of the cloths that Mama said I was wrapped in when I was found." He began wiping his face again as his eyes started to leak. "I didn't let him throw any of them away. I think that my carrier must have loved me, really, because he picked such nice cloths to put me in even if he had to give me away." 

They were ordinary cleaning cloths. They were just what had been lying around at the time. Pharma covered his mouth and tried to swallow his tears again. "I hope you're right." 

* * *

"Oh no, dear," Tarn sighed. "Stop. please." 

Fidelity looked up from where he'd been working hard on a blocky scribble, only one of several in the long series of colorful blocky scribbles on the hallway wall. He had to hold his crayon firmly with both of his nubs. "Why, Par? Look, I drew you and Tesarus and Vos and the Pet and Helex—" 

"I know, dear, and they're very lovely, but we can't have you drawing on the walls." 

"Why not? All the walls look the same. They would look prettier with things on them." 

Tarn recalled the things that made the walls interesting in other parts of the ship that Fidelity didn't have access to. "I know they would, but this ship is a very important part of the team's work, you understand? It has to be this way because otherwise..." It would be less menacing and gloomy for the people who were dragged there to die. "...It would be hard for us to concentrate on our work. Please don't make our work harder, dearest." 

"Oh." The little blobby child looked back at his drawing sadly. "I didn't mean to, Par. I'm sorry." 

"Good child. I know you didn't mean it. It'll clean up fine." He bent down and carefully collected his soft offspring from the floor. Noticing how Fidelity gave a last longing glance at his wall decoration, Tarn said, "You know, it won't be very much longer now before you'll be too big to defrag with me." 

"But I like defragging with you!" 

"And I like defragging with you. But wouldn't it be fun to have your own room where you can have your own things?" The sparkling paused to consider that. "You could do whatever you liked with it. In fact, I think it would be fine for you to decorate your walls however you liked, just inside your room." 

"Oh, wow!" The sparkling jiggled excitedly in Tarn's hands. "I could draw on my walls? Yay!" 

Tarn smiled. "You still have some growing to do before you can have your own room, though. So concentrate on becoming big and strong for now." 

"I will, Par! I promise! Thank you!" 

* * *

Fidelity sobbed and gasped, bouncing clumsily from cover to cover behind small rocks. He curled in on himself behind a little outcropping, barely large enough to hide behind, but he was too tired to escape to anywhere farther away. He hid his eyes behind his nubby limbs and cried and cried. 

Overhead, energy bolts from the active firefight were shrieking across the span of the canyon. Several hammered into the rim and sent broken stone cascading down; a rolling wave of grit swept out from the impact and scattered against his soft exterior. He gave a helpless, staticky scream. "Par! Par! Where are you? I'm so sorry, Par! Where are you??" Strength somewhat recovered, fueled by fear, he kept bouncing into the shadow of rock after rock, moving at random. He was afraid to go closer to the place where all the weapons fire was coming from, but he feared that that was where he was most likely to find the team. But it was so far away... "Par... Par...," he sobbed, his voice too ragged and soft to be heard at any distance. "I'm so sorry. I won't ever again. Please help me. Please take me home. Par... Anybody..." 

He regretted everything. He regretted being curious at all. The team was always so evasive about exactly what their work was - they left the ship to work outside, and they made sure that one of them kept him far away if they ever had to bring work home. He'd only wanted to know what it was all about. He'd snuck out of Par's suite and magnetized himself to the underside of one of Tesarus' larger armor plates, feeling so clever and excited to be going on an adventure with the team...but when the huge mech started running with long, pounding strides, Fidelity's sparkling magnets weren't strong enough to hold on and he'd fallen off and they had kept running and now he was all alone on this strange planet, with explosions and fires and energy weapons. He was too small for anybody to find. And they didn't even know that he'd come out with them. What if they went back to the ship and took off and left him here? In this warzone, where nobody would care if he was stepped on or starved or— 

" _Par!!_ " 

The greyed-out tank was slumped against the canyon wall, the rock around him sprayed with congealing pink life-fuel, a puddle of it gathering under his legs. His face was turned away, but even in the smoke and the dust, weren't those Par's comfortable round audials, his treaded shoulders, the angles of his breastplate— 

" _No!!_ " Fidelity left the shelter of his rock and bounced harder and faster than he ever had before, as if he could somehow save his dead parent if he reached the body fast enough. Gasping, overheating, he skidded to a stop next to the tank's legs. The smoke cleared enough that he could see the details of the armor, and as he bounced around to the far side of the corpse, he confirmed with relief that the body wasn't Par's at all. 

...He had never seen a dead person. He knew, just from reading, that people turned grey when they died, and that people had fuel inside of them that was like the fuel that they drank. But the far half of the dead tank's body had a huge hole melted through it, as if something had punched through him in two places and slagged everything in its path. There was melted... _person_...all over the ground, not just the fuel that had poured out of his riven internals but puddles of hardened drippings and rivers from his molten components as they trickled away. His face was so still, his lightless optics open and dusted with ash. The way his head sagged made it seem as if he were looking down at the sparkling, his dead gaze nailing the child to the ground. Fidelity stared back at him and couldn't look away, no matter how much the horror filled him. 

He flinched out of the trance when something scraped and rumbled behind him. Terrified that the thing that had killed the tank had come back, Fidelity turned to look— 

The Pet was there, perched up on a boulder above him. It was dragging its chain leash behind it - Kaon must have lost his grip on it somehow, wherever he was. And now it was here, its gaze piercing him like the corpse's, the dim white lenses of its eyes hideously blank. 

There was fuel dripping from its fangs. 

He had always been afraid of the Pet. It always considered him too closely, in its alien, feral way, whenever he came too near. He was afraid of what it might do if the team didn't keep it under such close watch. It looked so horrific, rusted and broken as if it truly had dragged itself out of its grave to visit its hate on the living. 

He knew, intellectually, that it was all a fabrication. Kaon had let him watch more than once as he did his thorough maintenance on the Pet, trimming its plating into studied rags and carefully touching up the painted rot and stains. It even had little devices in its mouth that could be turned on to make it drip that rabid, yellowish froth whenever they needed it to look even worse than it usually did. 

He knew that. But there was no one holding the leash now, and its blank gaze was piercing, the rumble of its powerful engine seeming to shake the air as it coiled itself down to spring. They said that it ate sparks and he'd thought that they were joking but here it was with someone's fuel on its jagged fangs and he was just small enough to be a mouthful. 

He cowered back against the dead mech's plating as if the body could rise and protect him. "Please don't kill me," he begged. "Please. Please. Par, Par, please help me..." 

He screamed static as it lunged, the chain clattering onto the ground; he turned to flee, but was helpless to outrun it. The cage of fangs closed around him and he tried to struggle, screaming and screaming, feeling it tilting its head back and the leathery tongue flexing underneath him. 

But moments passed, and it didn't release him to roll down its throat. He heard it sniffing the air, turning its raised nose this way and that. And then it started to run. The world blurred by outside the grip of its teeth; wind rushed into its mouth and over him, and through the sliver of view that he had he could see the rocks rushing past, faster than he had ever moved before. 

Then the firefight was around them, and he felt his organs sloshing around inside of his substance as the Pet started to zig and zag. More than once there was a terrible thunderous explosion next to it where a bolt had impacted the rock. Flying gravel rattled off its plating. He sloshed upward as it hurled itself off of cliffs and boulders, slamming back down on the rocky earth and making him feel as if he were about to burst from the force of it. He was crying again, terrified and helpless, aware of how close they both were to death every moment. 

And then it slowed, trotting forward slowly, and he trembled as it made piercing barks around his body. Indistinct voices rose up nearby, and it abruptly spat him out. Long strands of its sticky artificial foam clung to him and he felt the surface below him flex - somebody's hand. 

"Fidelity," Par said - Par's wonderful, soothing voice, which he had been sure that he would never hear again. "Oh, Fidelity, dearest, what did you do? What happened to you?" 

"Good Pet," Kaon was saying, and he heard its plating rattle as somebody scritched it. It whuffled contentedly. 

"How did the little guy even get outside?" Tesarus asked. The shadow falling over them must have been him. 

"What should I do with, um...," Helex called from some distance off. Fidelity could hear something that sounded like...somebody else screaming, all muffled, and an erratic, hollow hammering sound. 

"Transform and drive on ahead," Par commanded. "Don't...finish anything. Go directly to the holding area. We'll continue later." That dodging talk again, making sure that Fidelity didn't know what was really going on. Distantly, he felt upset that he had gone through all of this and didn't know any more about the team's work than he had before. Par was wiping the Pet's drool off of Fidelity's exterior carefully. The sparkling felt like his entire body was one solid bruise. He wanted to be strong, but he couldn't hold back a whimper. "Oh, little one. We could have lost you." Par was holding him cradled against that broad, comforting chest and rocking back and forth gently. "Come. We're going home now." 

He wasn't sure how they got back, as he fell into an exhausted stasis as soon as Par transformed into altmode around him. At some point, he felt Par unfold into rootmode and someone was handling him; he felt like he might have been put inside the autodoc, and he let himself pass out. 

When he woke up, they were all clustered as tightly around him as they could fit against each other. There were sighs of relief as he blinked up at them. "How do you feel?" Par asked. 

"Tired," he said. The others were backing away from the table to give him some air. "But I don't hurt as much." 

"That's wonderful. You're still healing, though, so try not to move." 

"Okay." 

There was a pause, and he thought that he saw the team exchanging glances. He was sure that this was the point when he would get questioned about how he'd gotten out and then he'd be yelled at for doing it in the first place. But instead, Par asked cautiously, "What did you see?" 

Fidelity's entire body trembled as some kind of dam broke open inside of him and, unwillingly, he _remembered everything._ "Dark. Smoke. I saw a dead person - I thought he was you; he was melted and grey— He was looking at me—" He was overheating, not circulating fluid enough somehow, and then he heard Par shushing him softly and Par's hand settled across his body like a heavy blanket. He felt himself calming down, though the images and impressions continued flooding inside of him - not just the dead mech, but the terror of the shrieking energy bolts, running inside the Pet's mouth between explosions that could have killed them both instantly— Par was humming softly, and he felt his spark begin to slow its frantic spinning. 

"You didn't see us working, dearest?" Par clarified. 

Fidelity shook again. "I wish I had. I went out because I wanted to see. I wanted to know. And I went through all that and I still don't know, and nobody’s ever going to tell me." 

"Hush, my spark. We do the work that the Cause needs done. What it is, the details, are not important." 

"But they must be if you do it! ...Is it bad? Do you do bad things, and that's why you won't tell me?" 

"They aren't bad things if they're for the Cause, dearest. Nothing is ever bad if it's for the Cause." 

Fidelity was starting to cry again. "I thought you were dead, Par! I thought he was you! It was the worst feeling, it hurt so much—" 

"Shush, sweetspark. I wish you hadn't had to see that, but you know that I'm here now. I'm alive. Everything is fine." 

"No, it isn't! You all have to go out there, to places like that, where you could— Any of you could die, you could just _die_ and you wouldn't come back—" 

Par was shushing him and humming again and he felt his spark slowing down once more but he didn't want to feel calm. He wanted to _do_ something about that unspeakable wrongness, the constant threat of death against the people he cared about. He felt that he hadn't understood death until just then, when he linked the memory of the dead tank with the sight of the living people around him. Then he happened to look up, past Par's masked face, and he saw the folded limbs of the autodoc against the ceiling. 

The team didn't have a medic. Fidelity knew that doctors existed, people whose only job was to take care of others, but he'd never seen one. All the team had was this autodoc, which at least was better than nothing. 

"...I'll be a doctor," he said, promising. "I'll be a doctor when I grow up. And I'll take care of everyone. I'll protect you." 

Something about that declaration made Par suddenly go very still, but then he gently petted Fidelity's still-tender exterior and bent down to nuzzle his mask against the sparkling's head-lobe. "That's a very brave and noble thing to hope for." 

"It isn't a hope. I'm going to do it. I've decided." 

Par still seemed oddly shaken. "Then you should rest now. It might be difficult, and you'll need all your strength." 

"Okay. I want to start when I'm better. I'll probably have to study a lot." 

"Yes, you will, sweet one. We'll help you as much as we can. Now rest." Par pulled away and gently fluffed up the bedding around Fidelity to make a better nest. Then, after one last affectionate rub, he left the room. 

A moment later, there was a soft clatter, and then the Pet put its forepaws up on the bedside, leaning over its long claws to sniff at him. Its pale, blank eyes bulged hideously. 

"I love you, puppy," Fidelity told it. "You're a good Pet." 

The Pet sneezed on him and then licked him with its wrinkly tongue. 

* * *

A couple of ship-days later, when Tarn checked Fidelity’s status inside the autodoc, he discovered that his child had sprouted leg-nubs overnight. "Oh, you've grown," he said approvingly. 

Fidelity tiredly nodded his more defined head-lobe. "I've been concentrating very hard so that I can grow up faster." 

"Try to be careful with yourself, dear." Tarn felt slightly disturbed at the idea of a sparkling consciously forcing himself to develop faster. He didn't recall reading about that in the manual, but perhaps it was one of those things that was obfuscated by dense medical jargon. 

"Par, how will I know what I'm going to turn into? Can I decide that?" 

"There's a lot of things that can influence what a sparkling ends up becoming. The people around him, his parents' frames, possibly his own decision..." 

Fidelity stared up at the ceiling, thinking. "I feel like...something with wings. Something that can fly. I want to fly - then I can reach people faster when they need help." 

That twisted the knife a little inside Tarn. He'd been hoping that their child would somehow have Pharma's genius while having as little as possible of the rest of him, yet here Fidelity was, determining on his own that he would be not only a doctor but also a flier. If he ended up in the same fast-responder aircraft class as Pharma was…that would be truly ridiculous. Tarn just hoped that their child would at least inherit his red eyes, the better to conceal his origins for as long as possible. 

"Whatever you turn into will be perfect, dearspark. Concentrate on getting better for now." 

* * *

Fidelity was lying on his belly, propped up on his arms and kicking his new leg-nubs in the air as he read a datapad about basic mechanatomy near the door of the evidence analysis suite. Par was sitting across the room, examining ion trail recordings. Fidelity was quietly humming a tune from a comedic opera that he especially liked when the door slid open and the Pet stalked in. 

"Hello, puppy," he said as it studied him. It came over and unceremoniously picked him up in its mouth. 

"Hey." Fidelity was a little bigger than he had been during that bad experience, but he still mostly fit inside the Pet's mouth. Not sure what to do, he just lay there as the Pet carried him across the room and then propped its jaw up on Par's leg, staring pointedly up at him. 

"Ah, well - thank you, Pet." Par said as he took Fidelity awkwardly out of its mouth. 

The Pet put its ears back and gave a long, eloquent huff that clearly translated to, _Why do you always leave this lying around? Why don't you take better care of your things? Why must I always be the only adult in the room?_ Fidelity giggled at it. Hopefully it wouldn't make a regular habit of retrieving him for Par whenever it happened across him, but it was funny enough that he didn't really mind. 

"It's right, though," Par said softly, gently petting Fidelity's outer membrane. "I almost lost you. I didn't even know you were in danger, and if the Pet hadn't wandered off..." He held Fidelity close and hugged him as tightly as he dared. 

"I'm so sorry, Par. I didn't want any of that to happen. I'm so sorry that I scared you." 

"We all know better now." 

* * *

When Fidelity lost his sparkling magnets, Tarn helped him settle into his own little room with his own bed. He had some storage space, though all that he had to store at the moment were his datapad and crayons, and he had enough wallspace to draw on for a while (Tarn hoped). There was a little nightlight that was the same fuel-pink color as Tarn's biolights to help Fidelity stay calm if he woke up and felt alone. 

On the first night, Tarn tucked the little one under the covers and read some of Lord Megatron's poetry to him until he drifted off into defrag. Then he sat by the bedside for a while to make sure that Fidelity was resting well. When he felt that the sparkling was defragging deeply, he quietly went back to his own bedroom and masturbated for two hours straight with his entire vocal array turned off, since his child's room was right next to his. He felt a million times better after just the first climax - the tension that had settled so deeply into him finally fell away. He luxuriated in the long stretch of pleasure, giving himself completely over to every erotic craving that he'd suppressed since he'd learned that he was ensparked. On that day, he'd sworn off all of his vices, focusing on his child to keep himself straight, but now that he had at least some privacy again he felt that he needed to start indulging in just this one. He needed _some_ source of uncomplicated stress relief and self-service was at least the most harmless. 

He slowed down only when he started becoming genuinely exhausted, his transfluid tank long empty and his lubrication beginning to dry. He laid there on his bed, staring at the ceiling, beginning to feel a little guilty at how happy he was to have his room to himself again. 

Naturally, his thoughts turned to how he wished that he didn't have to do all of this alone. Not just the incredible sex - which Pharma had ruined for him by being so perfect that Tarn had trouble _not_ fantasizing about him - but all of the sparkling-raising parts as well. His teammates - even the damn turbofox - had all been wonderfully helpful and he felt that he had done the best that he possibly could to give Fidelity a good place to grow up in, under the circumstances. But having a sire, a truly devoted partner and mate, was something different and special that he felt sorry to have never experienced. They should have both been there for all of those special moments in their sparkling's early life, there to comfort him and celebrate with him. There should have been two people tucking him in on his first night alone, and two in their shared room afterward, making savage, unchained love for the rest of the night. 

Even before all of this had happened, Tarn had had melancholy bouts of longing for a sparkmate. However, _Tarn_ was too much of a symbol, a force of tyrannical nature, to have any kind of truly egalitarian relationship. There were only people who hated or feared him, people who wanted to control him, people who were suicidally obsessed with the destruction that he represented. He was ultimately a _thing_ to which the rest of his species responded, not a person with whom they could connect. He'd occasionally thought of having relationships with his teammates, but realized that it would undermine his authority if he needed to be yielding and conquered in bed and then tried to command them outside of it. 

He hated Pharma, but he'd hated having to force him at least as much. It went with his image, that careless use of an Autobot's body, but he'd never remotely enjoyed it. He’d struggled to even keep himself hard, and he came barely a third of the time - he faked all the sounds and movements, but the absence of any fluids must have made his difficulty clear. That one opportunity to tenderly embrace someone as if he truly had a lover, as if it were permitted for him to care about the other's pleasure and show nothing but affection - oh, it had such an addictive quality that he could not help himself from obsessing over it, no matter how unhappy he was about the traitorous nature of such a thing. 

He would always be alone. And he hated Pharma for giving him a brief taste of what it might be like for him if he was not who he was. 

* * *

Nowadays, Fidelity and Tarn often read and worked together in Tarn's office, in companionable silence - the parent on his reports and records, and the sparkling on his self-imposed studies. Fidelity had all of his appendages well-defined now and was beginning to grow simple armor plates underneath his nanite coating. Soon they would press through the soft exterior and he would begin developing his adult armor configuration, colors, and altmode. 

He fidgeted a little and finally lowered his datapad to look across Tarn's desk. "Par?" 

"Yes, dear?" 

"I've been reading recently about sparkling production." 

Tarn frowned behind his mask. It was impossible to learn about mechanatomy without learning about _that_ anatomy, but he hoped that all the materials that his child had chosen to read were appropriately clinical. Maybe he would have to start being more involved in filtering Fidelity's studies now that he was interested in where sparklings came from. 

"I read that two mecha have to contribute in order to kindle a spark." 

"…Yes, that's usually how it works." 

"Um...so, if you were my carrier, then...I should have a sire." 

"Yes, you do." Damnation. He knew that this conversation had to happen sooner or later. He still hadn't told anyone else, but he felt that he couldn't lie to the child himself if Fidelity asked about it directly. 

"Who was he? Was it one of the team?" 

Tarn tapped his stylus against the desktop, wishing he'd thought this scenario through more. "No, it wasn't." He put the stylus down decisively. "Fidelity, your conception was...unexpected. Unexpected, but never unwanted. It surprised me to learn that I had you, but from the moment that I knew, I loved you and wanted to keep you. I think that that's very important for you to know." 

"Okay?" 

"Your sire... He is a doctor, possibly the most brilliant doctor currently alive." 

Fidelity's eyes lacked backlights, but they seemed to glow brighter at the news. However, when a long moment passed without Tarn saying anything more, he asked, "Are you embarrassed because my sire wasn't a warbuild?" 

"No, no, in fact I always admired his skill and intelligence, and I'm very happy to see that you've inherited it. But your sire..." He had to turn his eyes away, mortified all over that he _hadn't_ been ensparked by someone more appropriate. "He is an Autobot." 

"An—!" Fidelity reeled back in his seat. 

"Yes." Tarn looked down and saw that he'd started fussing with his stylus again. "I...will understand completely if you think less of me, dearest, for doing such a thing. But I hope that you will never think less of yourself because of your parentage. The Autobots are a political and military movement, not a genetic predestination." 

"Par, did he... Did you not want to?" 

How awful that it would have been more palatable to admit to being raped by an Autobot than to tell the actual truth. "No. I did it willingly." And wasn't that a damning confession. "I have never claimed to be a perfect person, although I always try to seek the Decepticon ideal. But...yes, I have weaknesses and have made mistakes that no one else knows about, and this is one of them. If it were known, then I...yes, I would belong on the List as well." Guilt and shame burned in his spark."It would serve justice if I were to be punished. But I hope that I can serve justice even better by living and working tirelessly for its sake." Cowardice coiled in his gut as well, a blind terror of experiencing all the skill of his team turned on himself. He clenched his teeth against it. No, that was _not_ his reason for wanting to live. 

Fidelity jumped off his chair and rushed around the desk, and Tarn pushed his chair back so that the little one could throw his arms around his parent's waist and bury his face in Tarn's side. "No, Par! You shouldn't be on the List! You're a good person!" 

His spark warmed painfully from such a kind and incorrect statement. "Even good people make mistakes, I suppose. Mistakes can still be unforgivable. I would never claim that I deserve forgiveness or mercy...but it was my act that was the crime, not your birth. You have always been innocent." 

"You shouldn't be on the List, Par," Fidelity cried, beginning to sob. "I won't tell anybody. It shouldn't matter anyway." 

Oh, such awful disobedience he was teaching his child right now, out of his cowardly urge to survive. He would not show such mercy to any other Decepticon. For the sake of the Cause, he should have carried his sparkling to separation and then confessed to the team and commanded his own destruction. He should have gone joyfully to his punishment, knowing that the Decepticons would be more pure after he was gone. 

And if he had truly brought up Fidelity correctly, then the child should have immediately known that it was his duty to inform on his traitorous parent, a duty far more important than love. He was old enough now that he should have understood that, yet he clearly did not, and Tarn's weakness made him incapable of delivering that lesson. 

His team was obviously flawed as well, clearly more loyal to Tarn than to the Cause. They must have suspected the truth. There was no reason for him to be so evasive about Fidelity's sire unless the conception itself was a mortal transgression. Even if Tarn had been sparked up by a rankless grunt, the sire would still have been a Decepticon and Tarn would have admitted it - it would have been only a personal embarrassment, not a betrayal. If they were truly devoted to justice, they should have imprisoned him, tortured the truth out of him, and executed him. But no, they had only supported him. 

He bent over his crying child, comforting him, opening himself with disgust to the knowledge of what he was - the rot at the core of the DJD, a mech never held to his own standards. Yes, he was weak, he was repeatedly weak. He wanted to be in his sparkling's life. He wanted to live. He wanted and could not resist his want, and he despised himself for it. 

* * *

Unity never got rid of the cloths that he had been wrapped in as a newspark. He always carried one of them - openly, when he was still small, but when he became grown enough to have his own subspace he hid one in there instead. He would take it out whenever his eyes leaked, and also whenever he seemed worried or unsettled and needed tactile comfort. 

He grew up and up and up, large enough to feel embarrassed about himself. He was the largest class of atmospheric cargo plane, only slightly smaller in either form than the interplanetary expedition shuttles. He was very bothered by this, as he'd been hoping to become something useful like a snowplow or really any kind of track at all, but Pharma had secretly been grateful that he hadn't taken after his sire to that degree. He had Pharma's eyes and a beautiful cream and gold coloration, but he also had heavy fangs, clawed fingers, and a somewhat stern face that perhaps was what Tarn looked like under his mask. His voice was not quite as deep as his sire's, but it resonated in rich, bell-like tones within the depths of his broad chest. Although he towered over even the miners now, his manner was so gentle and his voice so smooth that no one ever seemed intimidated by his size. He was often shy and tried to be unobtrusive, and Pharma was reminded of how perfect his pregnancy had been, how Unity had never wanted to cause any fuss even when he was only a spark in a bag of nanites. 

Unity never stopped drawing either, always carrying, at the very least, some kind of plastipaper and a slender stick of graphite. His size was no barrier whatsoever to his art, and his large fingers were capable of the most delicate linework. He preferred to draw people, adding only as much scenery as was needed to give his figures context. Care and perceptiveness shone in every image, tiny nuances of expression and gesture captured even in the roughest sketch. He drew everyone, in all kinds of situations, never shying away from depictions even of grief, horror, or fury. 

And he drew Pharma more than anyone else. Pharma knew this because he had had opportunities, more than once, to catch one of Unity's sketchbooks unattended. Carefully holding it in place on the table so that his sneaking would not be suspected, he devoured page after page of his child's genius, admiring the delicacy and precision of every line. Pride swelled in him at seeing such consummate skill. 

But the images of himself disquieted him. His expressions were, as Unity had once pointed out, never happy. Sad, but also distracted, focused, fierce, concerned. He could not help but think that the images of himself were somehow rendered more lovingly than those of others. Whole pages were devoted to dozens of his small gestures or changes in pose, sometimes only of his torso or hands or legs. It was as if the artist was not only practicing separate parts of his body in order to render them perfectly, but also just out of appreciation for every small line and angle. Some sketches emphasized the lean curves of his flanks and hips, or carefully rendered the sliding of light across his polish. He was deeply flattered by the attention, but...not certain what to think. 

One slow day, while he was reviewing records on the ward, he noticed the young plane hovering nearby. Unity fidgeted with his swaddling cloth for a moment before tucking it back into his subspace and approaching. "Doctor Pharma?" 

"Yes?" 

"First Aid was uncertain how to answer a question that I had about medical specialties." First Aid had, at some point, only become "Mama" in private. "He said that you would probably know more." 

Pharma closed the file in front of him. "Probably, though I know more about some specialties than others." 

"I wanted to know if there was some kind of doctor who healed people's minds and emotions, instead of their bodies." 

Pharma blinked. "It sounds as if you don't mean brain module modification or spark adjustments. Both of those can affect cognition and emotion directly." 

"Ah...not something like that, no." 

Pharma pursed his lips. "Mnemosurgery would be an even more finely detailed way to make such adjustments. I'm sure you know how comprehensive that kind of work can be." 

A minute shudder seemed to pass through the plane. "No, I don't mean changing them invasively. First Aid thought that he'd heard of a type of medicine that helped people to change themselves by, I suppose...talking through problems and learning how to live their lives in ways that suited them better." 

"You're talking about _psychiatry_." Pharma was able to dial back the scorn a good deal, but not all the way. 

Unity seemed to almost flinch backward and his eyes immediately dropped to the ground. "I understand. Thank you for clarifying." He turned to go. 

Pharma sighed. "No, no, no, wait. It isn't as if it's discredited, just... Why are you interested all of a sudden?" 

Unity visibly prevented himself from reaching for his subspace, probably wishing that he could have his cloth in his hands. Pharma felt a pang at the thought that perhaps his sparkling expected to be mocked for comforting himself. "I...always wished that I could heal people when I grew up, but I never developed medic hands." Another source of grief for Pharma, who had been hoping that he could at least pass his skill along to his child physically. Judging by the precision of his artwork, Unity would have been a surgical prodigy if only he'd grown the proper hands. 

The young plane lifted his gaze, fixing his unusually penetrating eyes on the older jet. "But I realized that I cared more about how people felt and the value that they found in their lives. I thought that people could be whole physically, but still be damaged emotionally, _meaningfully_ , and that there should be a way to help them, some kind of - therapy, like physical therapy, but mental or emotional. Something that could help them learn to live less painfully." 

Pharma's thoughts immediately turned to the memory of his carrying, when he felt all the while that his fear and unhappiness were poisoning the sensitive little spark inside of him, when he had the sense of an immense scar forming within his child when he had bundled the sparkling inside a box of cloth instead of holding and caring for him. His previous impression of psychiatry had been that it was flaky pseudoscience despite the continually-growing body of evidence supporting it, but...from the recent events in his own life and his sparkling's words, he saw suddenly how it could be far more vital than he had imagined. "I see," he said, just to say something. 

"If— If it doesn't actually exist, then, I only wanted to know—" 

"No, it does exist. But I need to be honest - I knew it primarily from personal conversations with Froid, the doctor who essentially founded the discipline. He was an insufferable idiot, and whenever I read his work, I always wondered how someone like him could have done such insightful, brilliant research. The research itself was quite intriguing and sound, from what I recall. Before the war, it was simply having difficulty gaining any traction because, as you say, it claimed that it was possible to heal people simply by talking to them. And after the war started, unfortunately, practitioners all but vanished." 

"...Oh." 

Pharma was mentally combing back through the contents of his personal library, which he had brought with him to Messatine as backup reference material. "Come with me." He led Unity back to his office, where he located the small number of psychiatry textbooks that he had - the ones by Froid and some more interesting ones by a researcher whose name he could never remember - and then started pulling single-issue discs of pre-war medical journals out into a pile. It was quite a good-sized selection by the time he was through. Unity was looking at it with glowing eyes. "There. I certainly don't have everything ever published on psychiatry, but this should at least give you the idea." 

"Thank you!" Unity accepted the collection reverently. 

Pharma smiled, happy to have made him happy. "I'm glad that I could help." 

* * *

Pharma was idling in the hallway outside the staff kitchen, having detected, before he could walk in, that First Aid and Unity were having breakfast together inside. He felt guilty for giving into urges like these, eavesdropping on their interactions as though trying to steal scraps of their relationship for himself. It was so rare for him to have these opportunities, though, catching them unawares like this so he could soak up their candid conversations. There was a sudden pause in their talk, though, and an intensity to the silence that made him listen even more keenly. 

"What's been on your mind?" First Aid asked gently. 

"Mama," Unity all but whispered, indicating by the word how vulnerable he felt, "I'm in love with Pharma." 

Pharma's spark froze dead inside of him. 

"Oh, sweetspark—" 

"No, it's true. I just haven't wanted to think of it that way, but I feel like I've cared about him all my life. I can barely remember when I started feeling that way. I felt so strongly that he was sad and I always wished that there was some way that I could just stay close to him and help him to be happy. Isn't that what loving someone is?" 

"Oh, sweetspark," First Aid said again, with an air of helplessness. 

"Mama, I have to tell him." 

"Maybe if you—" 

"No. I need to. I have to be rational about it. He's not a terrible person, but I know that he won't love me back. I need to hear him say it. I need him to turn me down or else I'll just wonder forever—" 

Pharma walked off in shock. The spark memory, the connection that couldn't be broken just by shoving a newspark into a more caring person's hands— Unity had never been able to place it all his life, and it had made him believe that he... All those loving, careful drawings, Pharma's image over and over and over. Did his own child fantasize about him? Did he touch himself while...? 

Pharma covered his mouth, leaning against a wall, feeling sick. 

There could be no more concealment. There was only one right choice between revealing the sparkling's unfortunate origins and letting his offspring harbor romantic feelings for him. He had to steel himself. Unity was a shy, private person; no doubt he would ensure that they were alone before confessing, and that would surely be an ideal situation to confess in turn. 

* * *

Pharma was working in his office after the official end of the shift when someone chimed at the door. Distracted, he remote-unlocked it and said, "Come in." 

Unity stepped inside, having to duck to get under the lintel, and put one of his cloths back into his subspace. The jet caught sight of it and froze again, remembering what the young plane was likely here for and what Pharma still hadn't told him. 

Unity nervously interlaced his claws behind his back. "Doctor, may I talk to you about something personal?" 

Pharma blinked up at him, incapable of responding, but Unity must have taken the silence as agreement. 

"I've... I'm in love with you. I've felt this way for a long, long time. I know that I'm very young, but I'm sure of what I feel. I want to be with you. I…hope that you might be able to love me back." His eyes worriedly searched Pharma's blank expression. "If you don't, I completely understand, I just...wanted to honest, and I wanted to know how you felt. If you...would rather I go, I promise, I won't mention it again." A note of despair came into his expression. 

For his part, Pharma was working his jaw, trying to force his mouth to open and say the very simple words that would solve this entire problem. For once in his life, his reaction time was far too slow. 

"…Of course. I understand." Unity struggled to keep the pain off his face. "Thank you for your time." He left. 

* * *

Pharma did not leave his room the next day until he had built up an unwavering determination to hunt his sparkling down and set things straight. He stormed through the hallways until he found Unity sketching listlessly in the staff kitchen, a barely-touched cube nearby. The young plane looked up in surprise. Despite his larger size, Pharma grabbed him by the wrist and turned, hauling him along. "Come with me." Unity stumbled in his wake as Pharma dragged him into his office, sent a command for the door to lock behind them, and turned to speak. 

A clawed hand cupped his cheek and his opening mouth was covered suddenly by another - a simple, clumsy kiss, a young mech's first kiss. The inside of Unity's thigh brushed the outside of Pharma's as if he were hesitantly trying to offer the space between his legs. "I'm sorry," he gasped when he broke the kiss, looking down helplessly at his parent. "I can't help it. I'm sorry." 

"Unity, I'm your carrier." 

Shock glazed over his sparkling's eyes. Pharma backed away a few steps, not sure if wiping his mouth on his hand would be too callous right now, but unsure of what else to do in response. He needed to keep talking. What he'd said wasn't enough. Unity backed up until he hit a wall, then he let himself slide down to sit on the floor, staring blankly at Pharma. 

" _I'm_ sorry. You deserve to hate me. You _should_ hate me. What I did was...so cruel to you, but I thought that I was doing what was best. I couldn't be a decent parent for you, so I gave you to someone who could be. That's why I did it." He pressed his lips together, waiting for the response. A terrified part of his mind was remembering Tarn's rage, the creativity of his punishments, and he felt himself bracing in case that same savagery was hiding inside this quiet, gentle mech and needed only the right trigger to burst forth. 

Unity covered his mouth with his hand. Tears were running from his eyes and, absently, he pulled the cloth out of his subspace - a cloth that the mech in front of him had given him as a substitute for parental love - and began to wipe the sparks from his cheeks. 

"Hate me," Pharma told him bitterly. "It's what I deserve." 

Unity shook his head and let his hands fall into his lap. "But why didn't you...?" 

"Why didn't I think I could do it? Because I'm selfish. Because I don't understand how to care about people, not in the way that a sparkling needs. Because I knew that I was more preoccupied with all the worry and fear and discomfort that _I_ was feeling and couldn't make myself focus on you. I wanted you to be loved and I knew that I couldn't do that for you." 

The plane hugged his legs to himself and let his forehead drop onto his knees. His broad wings sagged. 

"I wish that I could. I sneak around your life like a scavenger. I'm jealous of First Aid, how it always seemed so easy for him to do exactly what I never could. If there was any way that I could have done it, I would have. But I couldn't." He sighed and sat down on the edge of his desk. 

They sat for a few minutes, suspended. Pharma recalled another bombshell that he might as well drop. "Your sire was Tarn of the Decepticon Justice Division." Unity startled, lifting his head. "Yes, that Tarn. I haven't seen him or the rest of the DJD since the...when we were together. I don't know if he's even still alive." 

"Did he...make you...?" 

"...No." It didn't seem right to tell their child about all the times when it hadn't been consensual. "I was willing." The atmosphere in the office was stifling and he didn't know what else he could do about it. As always, he wished that he could somehow offer real comfort, be of any damned use to his own sparkling, but he had no idea how. "Look, I imagine that you might want to take some time to process this—" 

"I've wanted to meet you my entire life," Unity said softly, looking down at the crumpled cloth that he was holding in his hands. His eyes were leaking again. "I'm so happy that I could." He looked up and he was smiling despite his flowing tears. "You really did love me all this time. You loved me the way that _you_ love." He stood and came close, his voice rough. "Thank you, Carrier. I love you. Please don't stay away anymore." 

He leaned down and hugged Pharma tight, and after a moment, Pharma found that he was capable of carefully hugging him back. 

* * *

"Ratchet," said Pharma, arms crossed over his chest. 

"Pharma," Ratchet said, walking towards him. The _Lost Light_ towered behind him, mecha wandering around its base, stretching their legs. The ship had come in response to a message beamed out from Messatine, requesting the presence of a certain person who happened to be onboard. 

After several moments spent glaring at each other with narrowed eyes, Pharma reluctantly held out a hand. Ratchet shifted uncomfortably and looked elsewhere. Pharma noticed that the hand that would have reached out for his own was held low at Ratchet's side, several of its fingers frozen in awkward positions and the wrist unable to fully uncurl. "Ratchet, your hands...?" 

Ratchet shrugged casually, still not making eye contact. "Nothing a bit of percussive maintenance can't fix. Just acts up once in a while." 

"You're a _doctor_ and they're your _hands._ " 

Ratchet glared at him. "What, do you have a spare pair of medic hands lying around Delphi?" 

"Yes. Mine." Ratchet blinked. "I'm going to get my hands in your hands and I'm not taking them out until we fix whatever's at the bottom of this." 

"It's age, there's nothing you can—" 

"You're still full of slag, Ratchet. I'm at least as old as you." 

"You are not." 

"I am so. Are you saying that you're not a good enough doctor to fix your own hands?" 

"Are you saying you're somehow a miracle worker who can turn back time? Because that's what I'm hearing." 

Pharma gave him a downright feral smile. "I'm the better doctor, Ratchet. And I'm going to prove it to you." 

Some ways across the ice field, Unity was staring down at a comparatively tiny orange mech with wide, awestruck eyes. "You— You're Rung. The real Rung." 

"Yes, I am." Rung was clearly pleasantly surprised at being addressed with the correct name. 

"I love your books!" the young mech burst out. "Please, I want to be a psychotherapist more than anything. Would you teach me? I’ll work very hard!” 

Rung smiled welcomingly up at him. "I'm sure you will. I'd be very glad to help. The galaxy can always use another psychotherapist." 

"So you're Run?" Pharma asked, walking up with his staff. 

"Rung, yes," Rung said. 

Pharma eyed him critically but apparently didn't find him wanting. "Take good care of my sparkling, He's been talking about nothing but your theories for weeks." 

"I promise to do my best." 

Unity knelt down so that he could hug and say goodbye to each of the Delphi medics. 

"I love you," First Aid said, his visor sparking. "Call and write!" 

Ambulon took advantage of the hug to murmur, "Learn fast so you can come back here and fix your carrier." 

"I think ethics says I can't, but I'll think of something," Unity murmured back. 

Pharma had his face turned downward, trying to hide his own tears. The plane reached into his subspace and pulled out a worn cloth, which he pressed into Pharma's hands. The jet smiled wobbily up at him, clasping it hard to his chest. "I love you, Carrier. Please be happy while I'm gone." 

Pharma put his arms around his child and hugged him tight. "I love you. Please be happy too." 

* * *

Fidelity had grown up into a handsome, lean starfighter, nearly as tall as his parent, black and purple with a beautiful array of daggerlike wingplates fanning out from his shoulders. His eyes had turned out to be blue, which worried Tarn deeply, but both of them were delighted when he developed the same kind of dish-shaped audials as his carrier had. 

Tarn had been proud to preside over Fidelity's branding ritual himself, bringing him into deeper loyalty to the Cause through the gateway of pain. The young one’s brand gleamed on his breast now, shining gold like his parent's. 

Today he was leaving the _Peaceful Tyranny_ to attend Decepticon medical training under the best instructors that wartime had left to them. He had never developed the hands of a forged doctor, but the Decepticons were experts at teaching the art to anyone who wished to learn it. The academy was deep inside friendly territory, so Tarn had no realistic concerns about the war reaching his child, but he still felt irrationally worried as the team gathered on the steps of the training complex to say goodbye. Fidelity had hugged and kissed all the members of his family - even the Pet, who had cleaned his face very thoroughly with its tongue - save one. He stood before Tarn and his eyes widened as the tank reached up and removed his mask. They stood for a few moments, near-identical faces gazing at each other, one scarred and one new. Then Tarn smiled and leaned in to press his first parental kiss to Fidelity's forehead. The young starfighter blinked back tears. 

"I will always be Tarn of the Justice Division. But I will also always be your Par." 

"I love you, Par. I love all of you. I promise I'll make you proud, and I'll come back to help you soon." 

"You will always make me proud, no matter what you do. We'll be waiting for you." Tarn put his mask back on over his smile. 

"All hail Megatron," Fidelity said with quiet joy, and they waved goodbye as he turned to meet his future. 

* * *

Pharma was glad that Tarn had at least stayed away long enough for Unity to grow up and leave home. He supposed that it was too optimistic to hope that he would never see his tormentor again, but at least now he wouldn't have to...explain more difficult things to his sparkling. 

Old, familiar fear gripped him - not a fear of physical pain, but rather a fear focused on the t-cogs. He'd continued building up a collection of them over the years that would last for a while if the quota remained the same, but Tarn had been steadily increasing it before he left. If Pharma ran out, and it kept going up...he didn't know where he was supposed to get them, if there were simply no more bodies to harvest them from. What, was he supposed to make people die faster? 

...No. No, he'd die himself first. It was not even a choice. He couldn't. He wouldn't. 

But they bypassed the DJD base's medbay entirely and headed directly toward Tarn's quarters. Pharma frowned, disliking any change in the routine. Would it be more brutal or less, if Tarn didn't get a cog transplant first? Ordinarily, the clear relief of having a replacement made the tank extremely _frisky_ , hence the reason why the routine had settled into the shape that it had in the first place. 

The door to Tarn's quarters opened onto his sitting room and private office, and Pharma looked glumly around at all the things that he'd coveted on Unity’s behalf - walls lined with shelves, and those shelves full of culture. Of course, the bookcase with the pride of place nearest to Tarn's desk was packed with multiple copies of every driblet that Megatron had ever produced, plus dozens of commentaries and other supporting literature. But all of the other walls - hardcopy albums of artwork and architectural photographs, poetry and essays and theater and classic novels, racks and racks of magnificent music. He fully expected that there were cultural relics which might not exist anywhere else but in this room, in the possession of a monster who pointlessly hoarded them. If only Pharma had had access to this collection, oh, the education he could have given to their child! If only Tarn himself was not so hateful... 

The torturer had his back to him and was busying himself with something at the bar. "Get in bed," he said. 

So. This part of the routine was still the same. Pharma clenched his fists and silently went into the next room, where he laid down stiffly on Tarn's luxurious bed and stared up at the ceiling. He wouldn't struggle much tonight. It would be bad enough just to have Tarn breaking him in again after so long. 

"Are you wearing protection?" Tarn called from the outer room. 

Pharma blinked. He'd never heard that question before. And he'd optimistically fallen out of the habit of replacing his valve caps and was just relying on prayer to a silent god now, desperately asking that Tarn's proven fertility wouldn't take root in his spark again tonight. "No," he replied. 

"Look in the upper drawer beside the bed. You can put it in yourself, or I can help you in a minute." 

"I'll handle it," Pharma answered quickly. He sat up and opened the drawer, where he found two tidy little cases of caps - one for his own frame class, and larger ones for Tarn's. Absolutely bizarre. The torturer had never cared about protection before. These were a longer-lasting type that could be left in for a while until one's protective nanites degraded them. He took one out for himself and transformed a hand into a speculum and long graspers. Uncomfortably, he leaned back, wedged himself open, and reached up high inside himself to place the cap as a seal across the entrance to his transfluid processing tank. He immediately relaxed, relieved that this danger, at least, had been averted. 

Tarn came into the room, carrying in either hand a glass cube with a thick, dark liquid inside. He sat down on the side of the bed and handed one of them to Pharma. It was warm, and the wonderful smell rising from it - an Altihexian drink-and-dinner blend that warmed itself through the chemical reactions of its ingredients. Just enough engex to make one's mind warm and soft, not enough to get a person truly drunk. He hadn't had something like this in millions of years. Tarn could actually _cook?_ He tried not to look too eager as he sipped it. It went down wonderfully smooth and banished the last of Messatine's cold from his frame. Tarn drank his own through a straw and watched him eat, clearly savoring the sight. Pharma was too engrossed in the extinct delicacy to even mind. 

When they finished, Tarn put the cubes on the bedside table and asked him, "Would you do me the honor of pulling back your panels?" 

This was growing ever more strange. "Certainly not." 

"I expected as much. But perhaps I should tell you my thoughts. Do you remember the last night that we spent together?" Hope tentatively started to bloom in Pharma's spark. Did he mean...? And Tarn went on to speak of all the magnificent things that they'd done, all that he'd personally felt and treasured, how he realized finally that he couldn't deny his desire for it any longer. His voice rose and fell so soothingly, and _dammit_ , Pharma could feel it settling inside his spark, making it feel soft like a ready valve and eager like a hardened spike. His ventilations picked up, and he let it wash over him, increasingly wanting it to fill him. He opened himself to it, closing his eyes to feel it more keenly. And finally he did pull his panels back, reasoning that it would happen one way or another and he might as well do it from his own free will. 

Tarn paused then, and Pharma looked over and saw him pouring something over his fingers from a bottle on the bedside table. Was he going to use _lubricant?_ Pharma had thought that Tarn didn't even know what that was. But though the room was kept decently warm, anything stored at room temperature was going to feel freezing on such delicate components, so he gritted his teeth and turned his head so he wouldn't have to see it coming— 

It was preheated, as warm as bathing oil and twice as thick, a wonderful silken feeling that Tarn's blunted fingertips carefully spread across his tightly-closed valve. He still ached a little from pulling himself open earlier, but the heat quickly began to soothe it. Cautiously, he let himself begin to relax as Tarn only gently massaged him, returning every once in a while to the tight pucker at the center but never trying to force his fingers inside. 

Tarn had positioned himself so that he could look down between Pharma's legs as he rubbed, and while the mask made any interpretation difficult, he seemed to be looking at Pharma's equipment with...fondness? Affection? "How beautiful you are, here as everywhere else. How precious. I'm so happy that you let me care for you." 

And again, it was as if Tarn had become the complete opposite of himself, just as he had the last time. Pharma's body remembered it, even as his mind struggled to remain suspicious. His petals began to loosen and he trembled as one of Tarn's fingertips just barely slid inside their grasp, circling gently as if stirring the tender little hole. He found himself spreading his legs wider, offering himself for more. 

"Kiss me, dear one," Tarn whispered into his spark. "I need you. Come and take me." 

Then Pharma gave himself over to impulse, as he had before. He sat up and put his arms around Tarn's neck, feeling the fingertip sliding deeper into him as he pressed his lips to the mouth-slit of the mask and kissed it with increasing hunger over and over. Tarn fell silent except for a soft moan, leaning in and closing his eyes. Although his voice had released its grip, Pharma still felt his spark rising, as if it were glowing ever brighter and warmer inside of him. He surrendered, and Tarn surrendered, and everything was as perfect as it had been before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> = This is less a complete fic and more a series of interconnected story fragments, which is why it has no defined ending and could pick up more pieces later on from practically any point in the story - more childhood stuff, Pharma and Tarn’s not-relationship, more of the kids as adults, maybe even important missing scenes like the time when the DJD finally told Fidelity about their work… Basically, I posted this because I was tired of sitting on it and waiting for more of it to shake out.
> 
> = Just saying it again: Bean babies? Objectively the best.


End file.
